As you might expect, such an all-encompassing update means new features, the disappearance of old ones, and plenty of changes in the way things have been done to date.

The first thing that catches the eye when you launch the new and revamped app is that the map itself is front-and-center--on the iPhone, Apple has reduced the amount of chrome around the edges of the interface. The result is a minimalist interface that leaves much more room for the map itself. You'll find only a search box at the top, flanked by a pair of buttons; another pair of floating buttons in the bottom left corner for locating yourself and activating 3D mode; and the familiar page-curl in the bottom right. There's also, for the first time on the iPhone, a welcome landscape orientation option.

On the iPad, the app more closely resembles its predecessor, with a couple of shifts in the interface.

Due to those changes, using the new Maps may take some getting used to. For example, you no longer have to choose between Search and Direction modes. In either case, you just enter the location or destination in the search box; once you've located it, you can get a route by tapping the Directions button.

Speaking of search, Maps now offers suggestions for your search terms. I found this to be hit-or-miss; sometimes the location I was looking for was right at the top, but other times Maps didn't seem to understand what I was looking for at all. A search for the Eiffel Tower correctly located it in France, but searching for Notre Dame while looking at a Paris map tried to send me to South Bend, Indiana. Much of this can likely be attributed to the Apple's points of interest database, which doesn't yet seem to have as much depth as Google's did.