I don't have an iPhone, but my wife does. Given the debate on this thread, I decided finally to check my wife's phone this morning (in Beijing)....and it did give transit (bus) directions...so that's a definite win for Apple, as much as I would hate to admit it. I drive mostly in Beijing, or otherwise take the subway, but I used to occasionally take the bus and the google maps transit functionality was great (as it still is in most countries)..it was a blow that it went away.

Despite what moondog says: Baidu maps is NOT user friendly for a tourist or very occasional business visitor to China. Having a full English interface is really necessary, and Apple maps provides that.

For someone who is a China resident, and especially who drives, Baidu maps is very useful, most importantly for pretty accurate timings in traffic jams/ accidents, which can add 30+ minutes to a journey. A few months ago we were in a cab to the airport and needed to make a stop on the way...traffic suddenly snarled up and we were in real danger of missing our flight (think 20 minutes to make a single left turn) even though I thought we had sufficient padding when we set off. I fired up Baidu maps and told the driver to take a different route to the one he was taking: he was NOT happy, because of course, he thinks he knows better than some stupid foreigner. The estimated traffic timings were reasonably spot on: with the new route, we got there with about 10 minutes to spare for the check-in cut-off and I don't think we would have made it otherwise.

tb