Months later and there have only been very minor updates to improve iOS6's UK mapping. The improvements I have spotted have been:

- minor/major roads are better differentiated (though still not as well as on Google or Bing)
- "A" roads (major roads) actually get labelled with their number as well as their name
- in south London there are actually a few placenames now, you can open the map in south London and have some vague idea about where places are

However, almost everything that was wrong with UK mapping at launch is still wrong. None of the data fixes I've submitted in the last 6 months have fed through to the map (ok, one appears to have partially fed through, but only to break the map data differently). My two nearest towns are still mislabelled (Reigate is positioned in the centre of Redhill, where Reigate actually is has no label at all).

The worst thing is still that if you open the map at a random location, it is very hard to work out where it is. There is just crap context: limited placenames, placenames given crazy priorties, no railway lines until you zoom a long way in etc etc

This can make things like Find My Friends maddening, especially when using it via Siri because you CAN'T FIND YOUR FRIENDS, "oh, that is where they are, but where the hell is that ?".

Argh.