Google executive Jeff Huber says: "We look forward to providing amazing Google Maps experiences on iOS."
While this more than likely means that they are going to create an app, it leaves it open enough that it could just mean that they're going to improve their mobile web app version of maps.
They essentially issued a "no comment" recently but wishy washily commited to supporting multiple operating systems.
I'd imagine they're hedging their bets. Working on an iOS version while improving the web app version because you never know what will happen in Apple's App review process.
The trick was to narrow the date range to exclude recent chatter surrounding the actual launch of iPhone 5: https://www.google.com/search?q=google+standalone+maps+ios&#...