Apple Switches (Mostly) To OpenStreetMap 218
beelsebob writes "In the recent release of iPhoto for iOS it appears that Apple has started using OpenStreetMap's data. Unfortunately, there are still some problems. Apple is currently not applying the necessary attribution to OSM; they are using an old (from April 2010) dump of the data; and they are not using the data in the U.S. Fingers crossed that Apple works through these issues quickly! Apple is now one of a growing list (including geocaching, and foursquare) to Switch2OSM."
Re:Map Data Files (Score:4, Informative)
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm#BitTorrent
Re:hahaha (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah. Because Apple never gives back to the digital community. Oh. Wait. http://www.apple.com/opensource/
So, yeah, I'll take that bet.
Re:lol (Score:5, Informative)
It's under CC-BY-SA, which does. So yeah.
OSM complete coverage (Score:5, Informative)
This is especially the case as parts of the OSM dataset are about to be wiped out due to the forthcoming remapping [openstreetmap.org].
Re:lol (Score:4, Informative)
It is not yet under ODbL - the licence changeover is planned for the 1st April 2012 (however Apple appear to be using data from circa 2010, which was definitely under CC-BY-SA).
Silly headline (Score:5, Informative)
They are using OpenStreetMap in one iOS photo editing application that costs $5. I would hardly call that "mostly switching." More like the first toe in the water.
Re:Maps? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm in the process of implementing an editor and viewer for iOS called OpenStreetPad [slashdot.org], if you love the idea, feel free to contribute!
Re:Maps? (Score:4, Informative)
OpenStreetPad [github.com]
FTFY. Thanks, looks like a great project!
Re:OSM complete coverage (Score:4, Informative)
OSM doesn't exclude elevation data. You can tag any node you like as "ele="... But, 1) most nodes in OSM are not created directly from GPS traces, but instead by inputting a cleaned up version, because the GPS data is a bit noisy 2) GPS is very bad at gathering height data –it's roughly 20 times less accurate for height data than for horizontal location.
Re:hahaha (Score:4, Informative)
Strangely, that list doesn't have Webkit or LLVM on it. That's by far their two greatest contributions. Webkit, one might note was based off of exsiting project KHTML. The history there wasn't good. They essentially ignored the existing community around KHTML, took the code modified it with all sorts of OSX only hooks, released that to comply with the license (GPL or LGPL). Then a couple years later they did it the correct way and created the webkit open source project. Konqueror now defaults to the Webkit implimentation and all is well. Although, google isn't that much better at working with existing open source communities, if you look at chromium browser.
So, yeah, there is still an uneasy feeling when it comes to Apple and open source projects.
Re:Are they sure? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:lol (Score:5, Informative)
The map tiles are certainly Apple's own - they have defined their own stylesheet, with their own look.
However the map data those tiles were rendered from appears to be a mix of TIGER in the US and OSM elsewhere. TIGER is a public domain dataset from the US Census Bureau, and OSM is CC-BY-SA.
Looking at the shape of the data is often enough to tell you where it came from. One one level it's modelling the same reality, but in practice mappers tend to make slightly different versions of "the same" object (a road might be smoothly curved, or quite angular, depending on how much effort they went to). As such you can quite easily see when data comes from the same source, even if it's rendered in a different style.
It's pretty conclusively OSM if you look at which small features [wordpress.com] (footpaths, lanes within a car park, etc) are rendered. This data isn't present in the commercial datasets you can licence from people like TomTom, however it is in OSM (neither Navteq nor TeleAtlas have footpaths, or this kind of micro-mapping of lanes within parking areas).
Based on things like this, typos which appear on both maps, and roads that are in OSM now but aren't in Apple's tiles - it looks pretty clear that they used a snapshot of OSM, specifically one from early April 2010.
Re:hahaha (Score:4, Informative)
parts of chrome may be OSS
True, but misleading. It's more like "small parts of chrome are proprietary". Almost all of it OSS and included in Chromium [chromium.org].
The V8 Javascript engine, for example, was all developed by Google and released under the BSD license.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!111!!!!! (Score:2, Informative)
The past story with khtml webkit, and the recent story about apple-only planned features in CUPS, and the general attitude of big and small commercial entities towards free software, should make people just a little wary.
Simple roadmap for you: If it is within Apple's Patents they are stingy. When it is outside of Apple's Patents they can be very generous.
Re:hahaha (Score:4, Informative)
No, it looks like they took an April 2010 planet dump a while ago, and haven't updated since, which isn't great. This rather suggests that they don't know that they're using OSM data. Hence my bet being that one of the companies they bought used OSM data as a starting point, and then claimed to apple that it was theirs.