It really says nothing to imply that there were not terms attached to the use of Google's maps that a reasonable observer would not conclude were unreasonable for Apple to agree too. It says nothing to imply that there *weree either, but we still can't say either way.

In the end the only thing that matters is that we end-users lose greatly functionality-wise because two large companies behave like children. And us end users don't know better than finger-pointing and playing along (not that we have any choice in the matter anyways)

I only see one child (Apple) here.

Full disclosure: I am one of those three types of people above but that doesn't mean I agree with the actions of others in that group.

Doesn't strike me as that unreasonable.

And that would make a patent agreement entirely unreasonable for Apple

It's very possible that Google went in to the negotiations hostile.

Of course Google thinks it would have been better if Apple kept their maps, they lost license revenue and a bunch of all-important user metrics with the change.

The above statement is in no way absolution of Google's involvement in the decision. It's just a tactful response to a situation where fanboys on both sides of the fence are going to go apoplectic over anything more specific.

The second sentence after that quote could just have easily been "It's their call, all we were doing is asking for 10x licensing fees and a blanket agreement to stop suing Android handset makers for patent infringement, which I think is perfectly reasonable. They got all mad at us and said they'd do their own maps instead. They're totally at fault here."

Pretty sure a real gentleman wouldn't sit on the board of a company whilst at the same time building a competitor product.