Yeah, what if Apple force-bundled their maps service on the iPhone and gave it OS-level hooks that no other apps were allowed? We'd all be in upro- oh, wait

EDIT: below was a conversation with rdouble, who decided to delete his entire half of the thread.

No they don't. Maps links open in Apple Maps by default, hence the requirement for a jailbreak solution like this:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/12/14/mapsopener/

How is "handle map links" not an OS-level hook?

When did I say I was talking about inside apps only? There's a reason I specified OS-level hooks. The entire point is that Apple does not let you choose the Maps application your OS uses- even at it's worst, IE's "default browser" behaviour could be changed.

That is discussing sending the user to the Google Maps app rather than the Google Maps mobile site. Nothing to do with Apple's OS-level handling in places like Contacts, where it is impossible to use a different Maps application.

Tightly integrated products have many benefits to consumers. Bing isn't being integrated (solely) to "inflate" its market share, it's being integrated to improve the Windows user's experience. Google doesn't even necessarily support all of the APIs that are needed for the integration, and you can always use it via a browser if desired.