"I have a lot of money" doesn't translate to "I should make bad business deals".
If nothing else, it's certainly possible that writing their own maps app and taking the initial PR/UX hit of "it's not as good as Google's yet" was the only reasonable option available to them.
for a company that makes the claim of not compromising on the user experience. They have taken sacrifices in the past to ensure a better user experience. Its not out of character if they did have to spend more money for a year till they got out maps perfectly
If nothing else, it's certainly possible that writing their own maps app and taking the initial PR/UX hit of "it's not as good as Google's yet" was the only reasonable option available to them.
(Not that we have any idea.)