A: Business Insider is rarely a source of truth, at least when it comes to anything Apple. "Click bait" seems to be their sole goal in life.
B: Apple never precluded Google from putting their own Maps app into the store, they simply replaced the preinstalled version with their own when (if memory serves) Google both demanded too much user information and declined to offer vector-based maps
Instead, they allowed their contract with google to end and built their own clone to prevent google from using it to blackmail apple.
I disagree that's anything like getting rid of google maps, particularly since my partner still uses it on her iphone all the time.