Apple collects location data solely to help you. They've built themselves no financial benefit to collect it, so they keep it only on the device and discard it as much as possible, while still providing all the features users want. If you want a location tracker on iOS, you can install one, but it's not a condition of using their mapping product.
Google has a financial incentive to violate your privacy, and all of it's products are designed to serve that goal. So everything that could stay on the device is designed to collect and send data to Google, for their purposes, while they tell you it's to benefit you.
It's a very distinct difference, and the entire design of their respective ecosystems reflects that.
As an ex-Android user who switched to an iPhone because of privacy concerns, I’d still like sources and hopefully proof for these claims.
The more I think about it, the more I suspect trusting another big tech company with my privacy with no material proof other than their word might have been foolish.
It can be difficult to vet closed source applications, but I think this policy describes a truly stark difference between the two: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039
Whereas every location ping is seen by Google as an opportunity to attach data to your account, Apple Maps goes beyond not tying to your account, but regularly trying to make it difficult for them to tie the activity to any sort of cohesive profile entirely.
Google has a financial incentive to violate your privacy, and all of it's products are designed to serve that goal. So everything that could stay on the device is designed to collect and send data to Google, for their purposes, while they tell you it's to benefit you.
It's a very distinct difference, and the entire design of their respective ecosystems reflects that.