[lucb1e]

That's a location picker. I'm talking about the map view on which applications show you things, such as live views of all trains in the country or something.

And this is just one example, there are a hundred more things that are in the proprietary google suite, without which you'll be able to install only a few of the apps available for the platform.

[ehsankia]

Hmm, those are the specific apps using Google Maps API. That's like saying why does HackerNews use jQuery, I want it to use lodash. (I don't know if they do, just an example).

[lucb1e]

Don't they just call the default maps sdk, whatever implementation it is? Because if I firewall google play services and some other google stuff, but not the app that uses it, then everything will work but the map isn't displayed. It's google play services that does the map loading, not the app, it seems.