"This ranks with 'Antennagate,'" said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, of the 2010 public relations disaster when iPhone 4 owners reported that signal strength plummeted and calls were interrupted if they touched the newly-redesigned smartphone in certain ways. "Maybe it's even worse, since mapping is such a core feature of the smartphone, something that users use many times on a daily basis."

The term "Antennagate" was coined by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who led a hastily-called press conference in mid-July 2010 to deal with the backlash.

Apple has not gone that route yet, but it should, argued Dany Gaspar, director of digital strategy at Levick, a Washington, D.C. firm that helps companies deal with public relations emergencies.

"They need to regroup and get out a more aggressive statement and more detailed plan on how they will rectify this," said Gaspar. "They haven't provided the user with the necessary next steps that they will take. And this needs to happen now, within the next 48 to 72 hours. A week or two is centuries in social media."

Almost immediately after the launch of iOS 6, users who had updated their existing iPhones . They cited the lack of public transit maps, inaccurate maps, off-kilter points-of-interest, missing streets and addresses, and more.