[robenkleene]

The blog post I linked to above specifically addresses this (https://daringfireball.net/2012/09/get_the_fainting_chair). The specific consequences of delaying Apple Maps would have been either:

1. Not having turn-by-turn directions on Apple Maps, arguable the single most important feature for a mapping app.

2. Share more of Apple users data with Google in order to support Google Latitude. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Latitude)

So we have two choices: Not have the single most important feature in a mapping app, or violating one of the basic tentpole features the iOS brand, user privacy. So obviously they went with the third option, launch their own mapping service despite its flaws, and I've never heard a convincing argument that that wasn't the best choice.

[Wowfunhappy]

Oh, that's interesting—their deal with Google was about to expire!

Still—could Apple not strike deals with other vendors? It's not as though Google was the only game in town, especially back then when TomTom was a much bigger deal. At minimum, they could have used their leverage to negotiate with various players—Apple is good at that.

Nokia in particular had a fantastic mapping app, with turn-by-turn directions that worked really well on my N9. They still sell access to this API today: https://www.here.com/

I'm really not convinced that rushing an in-house app out the door was the only possible option.