With Google Maps they wouldn't have been allowed Turn By Turn. Apple made the decision to prioritize Turn By Turn and thats the decision they live with.
That article is saying there was more than a year left on the existing contract for using Google data for the Apple Map App. They could have kept the existing app, brought out the new non Google data sourced one as a beta and asked the users to help build that up for a complete switchover with iOS 7 with no issues and no damage to the iPhone brand.
All of this distraction (and continuing) for the iPhone 5 launch and sales into the holiday was completely unnecessary.