Yesterday Apple launched iPhoto, its photo management app, for the iPad and iPhone… and we’re rather pleased to find they’re the latest to switch to OpenStreetMap.
The desktop version of iPhoto, and indeed all of Apple’s iOS apps until now, use Google Maps. The new iPhoto for iOS, however, uses Apple’s own map tiles – made from OpenStreetMap data (outside the US).
If you don’t have iPhoto, you can view the maps using this unofficial viewer from Dair Grant or a transparent comparison from Iván Sánchez.
The OSM data that Apple is using is rather old (start of April 2010) so don’t expect to see your latest and greatest updates on there. It’s also missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap’s contributors; we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there.
03 May 2012 Update: Apple appear to have added OpenStreetMap attribution in their iPhoto v 1.0.1
But we’re delighted to see another prominent map user make the switch to OpenStreetMap, and look forward to many more.
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@taelor: I completely agree with you. We should be celebrating this – it’s good for open data, the community, everybody. The reactions here are pointless, puerile and a little bit pathetic. Grow up.
@Nzeribe
So you mean that everyone, who does not like Apple with their censored app market and who sue nearly every IT company on earth, should grow up?
Don’t you think it tells much more about you than about the guys your are pointing too?
No, it really doesn’t.
Apple needs to come into compliance with the attribution requirements. If they do that, that’s enough. While it’s possible they left it out because they’re freedom-hating thugs, there’s a lot of open source in Apple’s products already, they’ve been pretty good at giving credit where it’s due, and they’ve actually got a reasonably good track record at contributing to (and even sponsoring) open source projects, not just taking advantage of them.
Most of the heat the FSF/GPL crowd takes is due to the perception that they’d really only like their stuff to be free and open for people they philosophically approve of. While that’s not a fair perception, this kind of “we can’t help eeeeeeeeeeevil Apple!!!!” reaction doesn’t help matters. Open is open; it’s not just “open to everyone except you guys.” Having OpenStreetMaps deployed on a hundred million devices worldwide strikes me as a significantly good thing.
If Apple doesn’t add the appropriate credits in the next update of the software, then get righteously indignant. But for now, try celebrating what is, in practical terms, a pretty massive validation of a project that much of the non-nerd world wasn’t even aware of until today.
Actually, it does and your reply confirms it.
It isn’t only Apple suing people. It seems to be standard procedure now a days for tech companies to sue each other. This includes Microsoft, Apple, Google, Motorola, HP, Kodak, etc., etc. The list goes on and on.
Actually, Google is only using Patents defensively. I haven’t seen Kodak sueing anyone, and their going to be gone soon anyway. Alas my poor Kodachrome. Taken away. MS, Apple, SCO and Oracle have been pretty evil with the patents they own. Apple really has no excuse here. It was simply wrong to use someone else’s copyrighted work and not attribute it. It’s called plagarism. In school, I know I’d get an F for such a thing. So, I give Apple an F also. No Apple doesn’t get a free pass, for committing plagarism and copyright theft. Especially considering how loudly they complain when they are on the receiving end. No excuse. What they’ve done is commercial copyright pirating. A felony. Shame on them! Wrong is simply wrong.
Actually, Kodak has been quite litigious in areas around screen technology and some camera sensor tech.
The fact is that Motorola is the patent troll (in the case of Motorola vs Apple) because after they struck a deal with Microsoft they targeted Apple…
The problem is that these days it as popular to bash Apple as owning their products.
Even if that means spin doctoring the truth a bit. There is just no intellectual honesty.
“Censorship” ,”suing every IT company on the planet”,… exaggerating also can be seen as an art I think…
Google doesn’t have enough patents to sue anyone with. They haven’t really invented anything outside of data center services where they have no real direct competitors.
They are about to buy moterola who has lots patents everyone and currently trying to get a huge percentage of apple’s gross sale price on every iPhone. Apple claims they are already paying a license for the patents via one of their chip suppliers, and has been winning on that argument, and is now taking moterola to court under anti-competition laws. Google has issued an official statement saying, essentially, they look forward to continuing moterolla’s exact behavior after the purchase, and there are anti-competition agencies investigation whether that is legal or not.
Kodak is desperately surfing everyone trying to raise enough money to avoid going bankrupt.
Is Apple really doing anything wrong? I’m not a lawyer, and as far as I know OSM is currently going though a license change because the one we have now is too confusing. So I won’t speculate on what the requirements are for OSM or wether Apple is following them. Worst case though, they’ll have to pay some fees to the copyright holders, which they can afford to do.
But what proof do we have they really are using OSM? Looking around where I live, they don’t match up. Apple has far less data, in general, than OSM but both are quite poor around here and there are plenty of streets on apple’s map that aren’t on OSM.
Perhaps they simply got some of their data from the same source as OSM.
Personally all my contributions are public domain anyway, so I son’t care who uses it, the more the better. I’ll be watching this one closely though.
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It looks like the Chinese data are not from osm.
For Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar I found my edits.
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This map service needs to fix that it applies the location name of “Long Island” to images shot in Brooklyn, NY or Queens, NY.
Brooklyn and Queens ARE on Long Island. It’s geographically and technically correct.
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Madrid … “Los Madriles ?” -> http://twitpic.com/8tr7e3
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I love mapping, I love Open Street map, I love apple. The perfect combination
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I have a lot of questions about this, it seems muddy.
What exactly are the attribution requirements for OSM? As a developer I’m confused by it, maybe Apple is too? Has anyone checked the fine print? I’ve never heard a lawyer talk about the requirements, only non-lawyers. And has anyone checked the source of the individual components? Clearly OSM isn’t their ony data source, maybe they contacted some of the major OSM contributors to license the data directly? Or maybe it’s from people like me who flag everything public domain.
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Look, the open source community likes to paint pretty pictures… but this is obviously just apple wanting to get around some sort of licensing fees. That is all Open Source does for business… cut the bottom line and increase profit.
The level of accuracy that they require isn’t even that much, just a few major road ways in every city that generally go in the right direction is accurate enough for common usage… so Apple highlighting OpenStreetMaps only means “we trust it enough to be somewhat accurate… but at least it is free!” (I am not saying anything about OSM’s accuracy, just meaning that license-free means more than accuracy)
Though, I should say too:
Since apple is controlling their feed of your data, rather than using your own feed it really is just the typical “Sure we use license-free prewritten software, but no one gives a crap”. It doesn’t matter if the product contains open source software if the end product is closed to per-user development.
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