Does Maps improve automatically or it requires a new iOS update?

Automatically. It fetches data from a server. The app would require an OS update for new functionality, but the mapping data, etc is fetched from Apple's servers.

 

Automatically. As they fix them, the changes will be pushed through as you use Maps.

 

Hopefully!

 

Good to know.

 

That's the way it should work & the way I'd like it to work, but it's not experience I've had so far.

We were told that Apple mainly uses Yelp for the POI data for maps.

Armed with this information, I signed up for Yelp and have added quite a few local POIs. Some, but not all, were added to Apple Maps. This did not happen on a gradual, piecemeal basis, but only occurred when we had the iOS 6.0.1 update.

I hope this does not set the pattern for Maps in the long term as it should, as you correctly state, be updated regularly as users feed back new information. We shouldn't have to wait for an iOS update.

 

It's perfectly possible for them to update map data without an iOS updates. However it's also possible for them to make some data updates only available for certain versions of iOS. e.g. they could release simple corrections to all versions and then tie major changes to the next iOS, which would allow beta testers to test before the wider public had access.

I have no idea how they actually do it, just saying this is a possibility and one of many potential models they may use for updates.