I really, really wish they would have bought Waze. It was a big coup for Google to buy them up. Had Apple bought Waze, Apple maps would be much better today.
I’m pretty sure Waze never had their own maps, so that wouldn’t have helped Apple at all. And it would have only been a small aquihire since the Waze UI is too opinionated and non-Appley to be the default maps app anyway.
Waze started out as a community-based map building startup. They had their own maps.