Originally Posted by
trueblu
Baidu is NOT a workable solution for someone holidaying in China with no language skills. It's perfectly fine for residents or frequent visitors with even limited language skills. As such, even though I don't own Apple, apple maps DO work, in English, reasonably well, whereas google maps won't work without VPN. I can say, however, in my experience in Beijing, comparing google maps with Apple maps, the former is superior if one can access. Baidu maps is by far the best for traffic estimates (google is pretty hopeless here, and I don't have experience with Apple).
Apple map provides excellent navigation and traffic estimates in China as it simply uses the local provider Autonavi which is one of the main mapping data providers in China. It's vastly superior to Baidu maps when it comes to new road updates and speed cameras. Note that if you just browse the Apple map it will look a lot sparser compared to Baidu maps, but if you actually use the search function it can locate the PoIs with no issues. You can either search in English or Pinyin and the result will always come up in English.