Apple Users

..ther than mindshare, which in this arena they have the lion, the witch and the wardrobe's share of. More than enough to ride this out.

The development and refinement of the mapping system is driven by a completely different aspect of the service - it's a rare website indeed that uses Bing or Mapquest to provide directions; the prices for the Maps API for Business start at $10K a year. Google's interest in keeping Maps at the top of the game is to hold on to paying customers, not to be #1 in the free end-user game. I suspect it wouldn't make a lick of difference to them if they actually did lose iOS.

Not that they will; their response to Apple dropping maps is "Our goal is to make Google Maps available to everyone who wants to use it, regardless of device, browser, or operating system." Translation, there will be an iOS Maps release and there will be one soon. Given how insanely horrible the reaction to Apple Maps is, right up there with the Newton, Apple needs to get a comprehensive update out and out fast. Either that or just block Google apps, which would get their asses in court so fast it would make Tim Cook's head spin.