I highly doubt that Apple or the mapping companies it has acquired have quite the same coverage.
But more importantly, Street View is not as useful as having good and up to date maps. GMaps added the maps for my town much later, but now the maps have good coverage and are up to date. No other service is as good as GMaps for Europe, although Yahoo Maps was better for Europe a while back.
Another thing is turn by turn navigation. Google does have turn by turn navigation for my country, which is freaking awesome. Not only that but for my town they announced they are working on adding info on public transport routes.
And btw, when I'm saying "my town", I mean Bucharest, Romania, Eastern Europe. And I don't know how people cope with the above in other countries, but in Bucharest the data for turn by turn navigation and for the public transport routes has to be refreshed very often, so I'm sure it's a PITA doing this for so many countries.
They should direct their efforts to Open Maps instead...
I also do not think that the maps data in GMaps is created by "public, unpaid volunteers". This statement badly needs a reference.
I once tried submitting the details of a business in GMaps and the process was so awful that I gave up. But while I do agree that volunteers would better spend their time with OpenStreetMap or similar, it is really none of your business how people choose to spend their time.
Do a search on Google Map Maker if you need a reference.
People volunteer their time wherever they want, but OpenStreetMaps data stays open, while Google's becomes proprietary, for profit, the moment you put it in.
If nothing else, their database of businesses is hugely valuable and useful in its own app (it's what I use the Maps app for most and I don't think Apple will be able to fully replace it, at least not with the first iteration).
I thought Apple does not allow apps competing with the "core" apps.
Examples:
* Opera vs Safari.app
* Sparrow vs Mail.app
* Vimeo vs YouTube app
* Agenda vs Calendar.app
* Kik vs Messages.app
* Simplenote vs Notes.app
There are no rules for approval on the appstore. Just guidelines.
If Apple feels like it is in their best interest, it will allow the Google Maps app in the Appstore. Otherwise it reject the app.
"We're gonna be driving around all these places anyway. Let's stick a camera on top of the cars when we do it."
Sure there is the physical drive around stuff. But if you look at the C3 stuff (the company Apple bought that turns satellite images into 3D views) you can see where they might go with it. Also they do have a ton of cash and it would be seriously less than half a billion dollars to take a picture of the world. You might even get Toyota to make the 'steet view' edition version of the Prius in quantity.
The key thought for me here is that if this report is true, then Apple has decided mapping is strategic and taken it in house. And like Google (who did this in part so they could offer turn by turn directions [1]) they could exploit data they own for a wide variety of purposes.
[1] The original sources of Google's map information did not include a license to use it for turn by turn as that was exclusively given to another company by the vendor. Google had to acquire their own data without those restrictions in order to do navigation.
I myself can't think of any strategic reasons beyond competition with Google.
It isn't well known but all of these databases of aerial imagery, maps, street directions, speed limits, addresses are all sometimes licensable by third parties, sometimes not, and sometimes at extortionate rates.
How much of your mobile experience hinges on your use of location data? From turn by turn directions, general maps, businesses nearby, mass transit schedules, to friend locations and check-ins. Bottom line, Geographic information systems (GIS) data is a must-have feature for a smartphone.
Google has started raising the price on access to their data, this started a while ago and its been in fits and starts, but Apple can't just 'dump' all map info. Microsoft, same deal $$ for map datasets. So Apple is in the position of its two largest competitors having a way to suck arbitrary amounts of money out of them because they are suppliers of the 'must' have data on a smartphone.
New independent companies that can create GIS datasets can't compete with 'free' from Google and Microsoft for users, and even if they succeeded in creating a decent database and Apple used it, they would be subject to being purchased by Google or Microsoft. Finally there are patents (of course) around the use of map data and constructing maps etc from imagery, which a small company could not defend against but Apple can.
Therefore Apple has to own a GIS database that is at least as good as Google's version so that it can continue to provide a critical feature on their phone cost effectively.