I was reading this again:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/28/google_says_its_navigation_will_come_to_iphone_if_apple_approves.html

Google Maps Navigation should be added to a mayor release, like 4.0....

What do you think?

> Google on Wednesday revealed a free online navigation service [...]

Well, yes, but what exactly does it do? That said, it doesn't matter what any of us thinks. Apple is run by an enlighted dictator who hasn't exactly made it his business to let the world know in advance what future shapes it may attain. Best any of us can do is to answer the question "will X help Apple keep its advantage and market share?" My off-the-hip guess is that, since iPhone OS needs to differentiate itself from Android, any new feature that is too tied into Google's services (up to and including its cashcow the contextual ads) will not be ported to the iPhone. Possibly replaced or supplanted by similar Apple-branded services, but most probably simply bypassed on the not altogether unsound principle of "less is more."

We'll find soon enough – this Thursday the 8th of April when Apple holds a by-invitation-only Town Hall event of "sneak peak into the future of iPhone OS"
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/05/iphone-4-0-event-coming-april-8/

After reading the first exhaustive hands-on review of the iPad –pretty depressing in those parts that I personally care about– http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/04/ipad-review.ars/ it seems to me having better Google Maps Navigation would be the least of Apple's worries. Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow's future OS preview will alleviate some of the current iPhone 3.2's shortcomings, but I am not holding my breath. This iPad is clearly a first-gen device, much suboptimal yet where other uses than casual browsing is concerned.