John Gruber:
Whatever chance there was for Apple and Google to agree to a longer-term deal for iOS to continue using Google Maps, the effective deadline for Apple to make that decision was earlier this year, not next year when the existing deal expired. Apple wasn’t going to wait to negotiate until their backs were to the wall with the currently-shipping version of iOS reliant on Google Maps when the old deal expired.
Makes sense. It seems the decision was tough and the risks/rewards were calculated. In the end, the switch had to happen and it had to happen now. The next step is to see whether Apple bet correctly on their ability to quickly iterate and improve map data.