[jasonlotito]

You don't need to be involved with Apple to know they had choices. They knowingly relied on Google, and instead of planning earlier, they waited until the last possible moment to start putting resources into their own version.

They choose to rely on Google. They choose to enter those agreements. They choose to ignore maps for the first 5 years. They choose not to start planning to move away sooner. You act like they couldn't put any effort replacing Google until the last minute. It wasn't.

They screwed up and released a crappy product from choices they made. End of story.

[randomdata]

Apple has acquired several mapping companies since 2009, so we can reasonably believe that they've been working on Apple Maps at least that long, and probably much longer. Perhaps even before the original iPhone release, given what we do know about Apple release schedules (they are generally long and drawn-out for new builds).

Waiting to release the original iPhone until 2015 when Apple Maps was absolutely perfect would have been a choice, but not a reasonable one. Bootstrapping with Google's service was quite logical, and proved to be very successful.

And Apple Maps really isn't that bad. Perhaps not Google Maps good, but better than what the iPhone had prior. It is still a major upgrade for iOS users, even for all its faults.

[jasonlotito]

> so we can reasonably believe that they've been working on Apple Maps at least that long,

I can also reasonably believe that they weren't serious about investing effort into it.