Google Maps iPhone app goes straight to the top of Apple's most-downloaded

Hailed as 'free, fast and fantastic' standalone app brings to an end the agony of users forced to use Apple's own version

Early reviews of Google Maps were overwhelmingly positive. Photograph: guardian.co.uk

The new Google Maps application for the iPhone became the most downloaded free item in Apple's App Store on Thursday, just hours after its launch.

The long-awaited app launched in the early hours of Thursday morning, finally bringing relief to the millions of iPhone users forced to rely on Apple's own much-maligned mapping system.

The popularity of Google Maps provided an insight into the unpopularity of Apple's own attempt at providing a map service. Its launch came after Apple ditched its partnership with Google ahead of the launch of iOS6, the most recently launched operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

"People around the world have been asking for Google Maps on iPhone," wrote Daniel Graf, director of Google Maps for Mobile in a thinly veiled dig at Apple's own geographical travails.

"Starting today, we're pleased to announce that Google Maps is here – rolling out across the world in the Apple App Store. It's designed from the ground up to combine the comprehensiveness and accuracy of Google Maps with an interface that makes finding what you're looking for faster and easier."

Early reviews of Google Maps were overwhelmingly positive. The New York Times described it as "free, fast and fantastic," concluding that "Google Maps for iPhone is an astonishingly powerful, accurate, beautiful tool".

The Next Web said the new tool was "pleasantly responsive and feature-rich," although noted "a few rough spots that suggest it's been rushed ahead to market".

The early response to Google Maps is in stark contrast for the widespread despair provoked by Apple's own attempt at building a mapping system.

Users reported that railway stations had been imagined, the Sears Tower in Chicago had been mislabelled, Paddington Station in London had ceased to exist and searches for 'London' directed UK iPhone users to the Canadian London in Ontario, rather than Britain's teeming metropolis.

Google Maps had been an inbuilt part of the iOS operating system until this year's update. Apple decided not to renew its licence with Google, reportedly frustrated that Google had refused to allow it access to its voice-directed turn-by-turn navigation and vector graphics for mapping.