Apple has posted a letter from CEO Tim Cook in response to iOS 6 Maps. Whether it was needed or not is not the point of this, the most interesting quote:
There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations.
At least from my point-of-view, that is the reason for this entire thing. That’s a ton of user data that was bring handed over to Google from iOS devices. Aiding your competitors in such a huge way is probably not something Apple was completely comfortable with.
Will Maps.app get better over time? Of course it will. Will it get to be as good as Google Maps? Probably not (or at least not for a long time), but I think it is good that any Google Maps app will now be solely in the hands of Google.