[jrochkind1]

Google's business interests are weird here. They presumably were getting _paid_ by Apple for maps integration. Do they really want to say "Sure, stop paying us, and for free we'll make sure to provide an app of our own to your customers that's just as high quality?" On the other hand, Google is certainly otherwise often in the business of providing free apps to people that they try to get as many people as possible to use on other people's devices (I mean, Android. On the other hand, even though Android is theoretically free, i think every device maker that uses it has a paid contract with google). It's pretty unclear what Google's interests and plans are when it comes to this stuff.

[reidmain]

Google is in the strange position of wanting to get a piece of hardware into the hands of every person while at the same time having services that they want everyone to use because that is how they make their money.

They are constantly biting their own hand because making any service Android specific limits it's use and making services available on competing hardware limits their own hardware penetration.

Since Apple makes all their money on hardware they just don't care. They focus on making the best hardware they can and then build software on top of it. Jobs for the longest time didn't even want to put iTunes on Windows but eventually relented when people were buying iPods for their Windows PCs.

[unreal37]

That's a good point. Certainly the average iPhone user is now learning the value of a good mapping app vs the value of a crappy mapping app. If they launch their free map app a few weeks after iOS6 launch, they've taught Apple and a lot of people a lesson...