That's an interesting perspective, but there are a few problems with it. I think Apple could live without the brand tarnish from the Maps app (mostly, the errors in the data). It's become a running joke against the platform and a bit of PR nightmare as park officials warn people not to depend on it.

The move to smartphones gave us powerful, handheld computers. Apple proved to be awesome in that space. Now, however, these phones are becoming small glass windows to cloud services that crunch large datasets to give you quick, meaningful, and accurate answers. With Maps and Siri, I think Apple is showing that they don't yet have the competency here that they've enjoyed with hardware and interface. I'm not ruling them out, but it feels like the game has moved to play more to Google's advantage.