e.g. https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2018-May/0...
> * I work for Apple’s Maps team. We are interested in doing some fixes and improvements to inland water features in Australia on OSM, such as adding and improving geometry of polygons for lakes and wide rivers, fixing broken relations, and correcting alignment issues for inland features when they meet the coast.*
> Atlas [1], a tool Apple created for querying, visualizing, and storing OpenStreetMap data.
> Data Improvement Projects [2] being worked on by the Apple Data Team.
> Building Footprint Data [3] that Apple is sharing.
[1]: https://github.com/osmlab/atlas
[2]: https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues
[3]: https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/blob/master/BUILDINGS.md
So the question for Apple is why tie themselves to a 3rd party platform? If they're going to go to this massive level of effort to generate the best data set they can achieve, they'll want to control the full stack for quality and predictability.
They could feed the OSM-relevant data they create to the platform, but that means a lot more work to create and maintain the integration tools and manage the workflow, along with potentially reduced revenues if they make OSM too good.
I doubt they'll care about any threat from OSM, but I doubt they'd see the overall effort as a good business investment. This isn't as straightforward as open sourcing some software.
As ever, define "worse" and "my area".
OSM is consistently worse worldwide (compared to Google, TomTom and Here) for geocoding. OSM is consistently worse for lane guidance. OSM is generally worse than Google worldwide for commercial POIs (shops, restaurants etc.), but on a par with TomTom and Here, and this is very location-dependent.
OSM is better worldwide, by several orders of magnitude, for pedestrian and bicycle mapping. OSM is generally better for non-commercial POIs. OSM is very often better in all aspects (save geocoding) in rural locations, particularly in Europe.
If you're an American motorist then Google is your best map right now. If you're a European cyclist then OSM is really the only game in town. It's not a black-and-white issue.
I think a perfect example of Apple doing this is: Webkit. Webkit gets back a lot from Apple (though I'm sure there's plenty of room to be miffed at Apple for being slow sometimes, but it still doesn't disprove the point) and it's a core part of their user-facing applications.
Personally, I'd like to see them just open source what they have and let the world enjoy. Either approach would certainly remove the death grip Google has on mapping solutions right now.
Edit: update for grammar and clarity fixes.
I like to be thinking that, but being aware of me liking that thought, I'm asking myself: would I actually do so being some Apple executive? And I'm not sure I would. I do think that being community-supported is really, really great, and OSM has a pretty good community too. I'm a big opensource proponent, so it's easy for me to say, but I also think having their maps (software and data) free (as in GNU, yeah) wouldn't harm Apple, given the map is not their unique product they are selling. And being a native supporter of something that could be wikipedia for maps would be huge. So, yeah… yay OSM?
But, with all that said: IMO, OSM is a huge organizational mess. Giving them money & satellites, and then just expecting it will all "solve itself out" isn't really something I would do being responsible for Apple Maps. For starters, it's not like all OSM community members automatically become Apple employees, you're basically donating to somebody over whom you won't have any leverage. What's more important, it's not clear what it the goal of the donation, what OSM is expected to do with that? And how it will serve Apple? Their priorities seem to be quite off, OSM doesn't give a shit about any "product" whatsoever, they are just guys passionate about collecting all sorts of geo-data into databases nobody ever uses (at least, as far as OSM is concerned, they are the database: they don't make apps). And it's even questinable if such way of collecting data is the way to go in the age of imaging satellites, widely accepted spyware on every phone, ML and "big data".
And it's not like this is cheap, any way it would be done. And, no offense, but "partnering" with OSM wouldn't be exactly partnering. OSM doesn't have managers, engineers or cartographers any better than Apple can hire, all they have is community, which wouldn't even be OSM community anymore, if Apple rolls out a better (and more accessible) open geo-spatial DB than OSM has. Which, I believe, they are capable of.
also Apple need to bring alternate satellite image providers like ISRO, SpaceX
Apple could do the same thing with maps. Support a robust open mapping initiative to make sure their primary business (selling iPhones and other devices) has a solid platform for emerging technologies like AR. Making sure they have a solid maps offering supports the Apple (aka iPhone) ecosystem.
Also similarly to Google, they can still push plenty of proprietary things on top of the open parts of the initiative.
Gwern's article about it was recently discussed here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348
Makes perfect sense, they don't need to make money on it, just an alternative to google.
It the same argument when someone talks about an issue with an open source software. The response is, “The source code is available, go fix it yourself.” It doesn’t work that way for anything but trivial issues.
No one said it has to be your job or passion. I've fixed a couple of areas in OSM, but I've probably spent no more than a few hours working on it in total.
> It the same argument when someone talks about an issue with an open source software. The response is, “The source code is available, go fix it yourself.” It doesn’t work that way for anything but trivial issues.
Fixing a map for a locale you're familiar with is orders of magnitude easier than fixing a bug in an unfamiliar codebase potentially built with unfamiliar technology. That's assuming you know how to code in the first place.
That doesn’t work unless everyone else is doing it. And for that to work, everyone should be using it in the first place. It’s a catch 22 problem. To be fair, it is possible that people do this where you live - which may be a reason why it is usable there, but I have not found that to be the case at the places I have visited.
Perhaps it is not as complicated as fixing a software bug, but the idea is same - the data is available publically, go fix it.
If that were actually true, Wikipedia would be no more than four stub articles written by Jimmy Wales.
The real barrier is people looking at a volunteer project and asking themselves "how can I take from this what I want?" rather than "how can I contribute to this, even in a small way?"
No one says anyone has to take on the herculean task of totally fixing all the problems they see in their area. But if you spend a little time fixing something, it will get better and perhaps even attain a high enough quality to satisfy you.
Create an account, figure out how to navigate the interface, figure out what rules apply to your update, apply update, get reprimanded because you followed the explicit rule for "I'm not quite sure what to do with this".
He tried to dream up some notions to gamify improving OSM's data. While their current data quality trends are remarkable, better is better, right? (I don't have the gumption to find & link their conf proceedings slidedeck right now, sorry.)
I have interest and experience with GIS, location-based stuff, games. So we tried to brain storm some game ideas.
Sadly, we got nothing.
But I'm confident someone will divine a MineCraft-esque smash hit game. Something simple, fun, engaging, cultural, that with 20/20 hindsight will leave a lot of people facepalming.
Sure if they could have a super high quality dataset they build themselves it would be stupid to share it, but they don’t have that data, and I wouldn’t bet on them to have it even putting all their weight in the effort.
There is also the issue of motivation for the user to give feedback. If I do it in Google Maps I know it will benefit most users. In OSM it’s a pure gift to the community. Apple Maps ? it’s less clearcut.
The reason to partner with OSM would be to cover the other 99% of landmass. It's very, very difficult to scale an operation like that otherwise.
According to the article, OpenStreetMaps was one of the data sources that Apple used and decided wasn't up to snuff.
The article doesn't specify what the problems were with OSM, or if there were any problems unique to OSM, but one of Apple's priorities is rapid map updates, which is something that can be accomplished faster if it's in-house.
In addition, Apple intends to update its new maps in real-time (new road opens and 100 iPhone users drive on it, it magically appears on the map). I don't think that's possible with OSM.
The article just strikes me as plain wrong in this regard. Yes, of course Apple isn't going to use OSM in the Bay Area, but it's a big world out there.
It'd likely be necessary to make that data available under the same license OSM is under, but that'd be it.
The way people use OSM, they grab a dump of the data and then load it into a database or whatever (probably processing it into a convenient schema) and then build maps from that database. So it's pretty easy to have more than 1 source contributing to the map you are displaying.
For updates, edits to OSM are available minute by minute, so if your data ingestion is up to it you don't have to put up with the stale data:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm/diffs#Minutel...
OSM comparatively was of much higher caliber, which was surprising.
Bear in mind if malicious entries got into OSM and made their way into Apple's data, guess who eats the smelly sandwitch for that?
It admittedly doesn't seem like a great fit for current Apple.
Maps, location data, and the services they enable were available on Apple devices before this project. They outsourced to Google, like everyone else. I can see how that's a strategically concerning position, especially considering that they are in a two-horse race against Google, but... you are going to have some uncomfortable dependencies in this business regardless. I mean chips are important.. nevermind.
Google was withholding the latest features from the Apple version, including vector map data and turn by turn directions. There's also indications Google wanted access to user location data in return for some of these features, something Apple was not willing to compromise on.
Sure Google could've promised that they wouldn't collect which tile a phone requested by specific user agent, but that would be silly.
This is absolutely it. Maps, location data, and point clouds will power ARKit on the phone and perhaps in glasses.
Apple’s mobile UX has always relied on vertical integration, from custom-built A* chips all the way up to iCloud-powered software. Similarly, mastering underlying AR technologies will give Apple maximal control over its AR user experience.
Perhaps this would be too risky, but they could license it from Google?
This seems better for consumers in the long run: better to have two maps apps on the device, both attempting to be comprehensive and accurate.
When Google launched navigation on Android, it lost money in countries not covered by Ground Truth, which I think was everywhere outside the US. That's because TeleAtlas and co. charged N times as much when the same data was used for real time directions.
>But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google Maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions.
>Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s Maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space. And having chosen Google as its original mapping partner, the iPhone maker was now in a position where an archrival was calling the shots on functionality important to the iOS maps feature set.
>And this caused Apple — which typically enjoys very tight control over its products — no end of philosophical discomfort, sources say. Apple pushed Google hard to provide the data it needed to bring voice-guided navigation to iOS. But according to people familiar with Google’s thinking, the search giant, which had invested massive sums in creating that data and views it as a key feature of Android, wasn’t willing to simply hand it over to a competing platform.
>And if there were terms under which it might have agreed to do so, Apple wasn’t offering them. Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn’t happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined. And these became major points of contention between the two companies, whose relationship was already deteriorating for a variety of other reasons, including Apple’s concern that Google was gathering too much user data from the app.
I think it was a major strategic mistake on Google's part. But this was the heyday of Andy Rubin, and during that era Google was letting the tail wag the dog in trying to differentiate Android. They've since come to their senses and Android is back to being what it was always designed to be, a vessel for Google's services that actually make money. But that forced Apple to enter this business when they otherwise wouldn't have and now it will serve as a core technology from autonomous cars to AR. And since they're already sinking the capital and doing the grunt work to make Maps from scratch, they might as well earn some incremental revenue from it [2].
[1] http://allthingsd.com/20120926/apple-google-maps-talks-crash...
That story is cool, but it's missing at least an additional plot twist that "people familiar with Google's thinking" cautiously chose not to mention. I doubt the Apple side would bring it up. Hopefully in ten years someone will write a memoir about those crazy days.
I disagree that this was a major strategic mistake for Google; they had no other realistic choice. A bit of that was informed by the experience with the built-in Maps AND Youtube apps written in Cupertino. The article talks about features and data, but there are other realities to contend with. Of course, Apple had its hands tied by earlier events and choices, too. Things were already on a collision course by the time the negotiations started.
This sounds definitive. Is it a conjecture, or do you know something that you're not mentioning (or possibly it is widely known and just I don't know it …)?
The All Things D article is nice when it comes to drama and gossip, but omits details behind words such as "there were a number of issues". Those twists might be mundane or boring for a good story, but made the divorce even more inevitable. The relationship was doomed to fail.
What choice do they have? Maps, location data, and the services they enable are critical to mobile devices today, and will only get more so with AR and devices without screens.
“Everybody but Google” isn’t good enough judging by the current state of affairs, and Google doesn’t play by the same privacy rules as Apple, so they seem to have few options.