I think what really happened is that Urban Airship discovered the SimpleGeo service was really crappy and decided it needed to shut it down as soon as possible to avoir eternel peril...
SimpleGeo has rewritten its platform several times (project GISele, then project Penelope), it was done by people who thought they knew how to do geosearch, but they really had no idea, for example they never offered polygon search, they also only offered tag search a few weeks prior to being acquired, and it was done by a girl who left the company like a week after her feature went live.
This company was probably a scam from day one, it only got money because its founders were reknown.
Not sure where you're getting your information, but it's almost entirely wrong. GISelle is the same tech as Penelope. It was renamed because there was a trademark issue. Polygon search has been implemented for some time, but was delayed for product reasons (it's actually live, just undocumented). Tag indexing was launched with SimpleGeo storage from day one. Indexing of all properties by default happened several months before the acquisition. Both features were developed by people who are still at the company.
The company was acquired because it has real, defensible technology. If you're going to talk shit, at least get your facts straight.
SimpleGeo has rewritten its platform several times (project GISele, then project Penelope), it was done by people who thought they knew how to do geosearch, but they really had no idea, for example they never offered polygon search, they also only offered tag search a few weeks prior to being acquired, and it was done by a girl who left the company like a week after her feature went live.
This company was probably a scam from day one, it only got money because its founders were reknown.