Yeah but all iPhones use that and, apparently, all iPhones don't lag.
So how can people tell newer iPhones are faster?
Less input lag.
As Jpeyton said, iOS trades input lag for pretty transition animations, so there are times when your input suddenly does not register.
So basically, Apple's does this:
1) Expecting user input: responsiveness > smoothness (low input lag, dropped animation frames)
2) Doing transition animation: responsiveness < smoothness (high input lag, no animation frame drop)
It's adaptive, and Apple is very good at knowing when to do what... though sometimes it still shows through and iOS brings the device to a crawl, but that happens pretty rarely.
On the other hand, Android does pretty much something in between... but since some devices have bad touch panels, they "seem" to lag more than they should. It's both a hardware and a software problem on Android.
No, it will not be equal. It takes numerous years/manpower to make google maps what it was, you can't just throw money at it. And it kinda sucks for ios users to not have street view, which is a VERY useful feature.
Streetview was added to the web interface for Google Maps, so now iOS users can just go on there to look for houses if nowhere else.