In ye olden days, Apple didn’t have its own mapping application, and Google Maps was the default map application for iOS. That changed in iOS 6 when Apple launched Apple Maps, users were defaulted to the inferior app. Google Maps wouldn’t launch its own standalone app on iOS for months (years?).
Mostly right... since iOS came out there has been an app called maps, which was using google apis until iOS6, which is the point people started differentiating "Apple Maps" and "Google maps".
IIRC, one of the big reasons it was an upsetting change is there wasn't an option to change default apps and google didn't even have a maps app when iOS6 dropped, so if someone sent you an address, or you clicked on an address link, it always would open in the apple version. Which at the time was dogshit terrible, it was like stepping back in time 5 years.
https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/the-apple-ios-6-maps-fiasc...