Incorrect: the maps app in iOS < 6 had plenty of ads in the form of sponsored listings. I can recall several times on a road trip recently where I searched for

Incorrect: the maps app in iOS < 6 had plenty of ads in the form of sponsored listings. I can recall several times on a road trip recently where I searched for a point of interest, and got a sponsored listing... Sometimes it was right on top of the non-sponsored point, so I had to zoom in really far just to be able to select the desired pin. iOS maps is basically another ad platform... And with iOS 6 being adopted at a high rate, Google would lose all those "eyeballs" and crowd sourced data if they didn't release their own iOS maps app.