Why people don't seem to get this is beyond me. Releasing Siri and Maps early were purely strategic decisions. Clearly both Siri and Maps can be improved more rapidly if some of the development is crowdsourced. Apple would believe (and rightly so) that the brand has enough excess credibility/goodwill with the public to ride this out.

Google has done this repeatedly with products like GOOG-411, a data collection exercise that was promptly shut down once it had served its purpose. Apple is taking a risk here because Maps is not some 'free' offering like GOOG-411, but they've done the math and will come out ahead when the dust settles.