[mitchty]

They could, but Core Location in iOS 6 uses the backend data for things like getting your car route. If I recall correctly Google doesn't let you use their api for things like that.

Basically removing the Maps app is one thing, removing new OS features that use the same frameworks is another.

[cma]

Wouldn't moving from Google to Apple maps be adding the new OS features rather than removing them?

[mitchty]

That is what I said. My point being removing/adding Apple Maps isn't the hard part, it was merely to point out that there is more to the mapping api's than an application. And if legally Apple cannot do turn by turn using Google apis, then they cannot provide one to one compatible api's with both. So they just dropped the Google api backended MapKit.