"Apple didn’t make an arbitrary decision to withhold Retina on the Mini to save money, upsell more buyers to the iPad 4, or “force” the first generation of iPad Mini owners to upgrade next year. They chose not to ship a Retina iPad Mini because it would be significantly worse than the previous iPads in very important factors."
That Google Maps asked for a lot of money and gave them less functionality (turn by turn navigation etc).
Agreed they messed up the launch, but it had to be done eventually.
Every business makes mistakes, the fact that people are upset most by apple maps being crap and having to use a browser instead is actually not too bad considering how many things they are doing at the moment!
Apple Maps was a software decision, the iPad Mini Retina decision was hardware. These decisions were made by two different people; Scott Forstall and Jonathan Ive.
Also, it's a good example of how Apple's management is still able to recognize mistakes and try new ways, even if that means slaughtering an employee who significantly contributed to their top position in the market (Forstall).
Microsoft's fallout with Sinofsky is an interesting parallel to say the least.
Er, Apple Maps?