Apple will indeed cut Google out of a lucrative deal for mapping data for its mobile devices, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report supports an earlier rumor that iOS 6 would introduce Apple's long-planned replacement for Google Maps.

Since 2009, Apple has been acquiring companies that specialize in mapping applications and technologies. In 2009, shortly after a rift between Apple and Google began over Android, Apple bought PlaceBase. That company specialized in creating an API for combining various types of data with location information. Then, in 2010, the company acquired Poly9, known for its mapping visualization technology. Finally, in 2011, Apple snapped up C3 Technologies, a Saab spin-off that had developed automated 3D mapping algorithms and had begun building a database of 3D maps of the entire globe.

It has long been suspected that Apple has been working on a replacement for the widely used Google Maps service, featured prominently in the iOS Maps application. Apple also offers an API for iOS developers to include Google Maps functionality in their own apps. Any replacement would not only have to work for the Maps application itself, but would need to serve as a complete replacement for the Google Maps APIs used by app developers.

The first hint of the change came when it was revealed that a bug in iOS caused a much larger-than-expected cache of location data to be stored on iOS devices. In its efforts to downplay the privacy impact of the location cache, Apple admitted to collecting anonymized location data for building its own crowd-sourced traffic analysis feature. Then iPhoto for iOS was released in March of this year, which featured distinctly different-looking maps than those in iPhoto for OS X or in Maps for iOS. Apple later revealed that it was using an open source database of mapping data from OpenStreetMap.

9to5Mac reported in May that iOS 6 would complete the transition to a "completely in-house" mapping solution.

"The most important aspect of the new Maps application is a powerful new 3D mode," 9to5Mac noted. BGR later corroborated that fact with its own sources, which described Maps in iOS 6 featuring a default 3D mode using C3 Technologies' data.

WSJ confirmed the change with both current and former Apple employees, who said that the "plan to evict Google Maps" has been in the works for "years."

"In the short term, Google will lose some ad revenue and miss out on data about what local businesses people are searching for—which it uses to pitch retailers on buying certain ads," WSJ noted. "Longer term, it is likely to hurt Google's ability to generate map-related revenue, according to former Google employees."

The switch in mapping technologies is said to be yet another move in Apple's bitter rivalry with Google over smartphone platforms. Former CEO Steve Jobs admitted to biographer Walter Isaacson that he planned to go "thermonuclear" on Google because Android was "a stolen product."