The article claims that it doesn't appear that they're using OSM data, but if you look at the label of the green area on Apple's map and OSM, they're both labeled Great Salterns Golf Corse[sic]. So, it seems likely that they're using at least some data from OSM.

Well spotted! It appears that the author does not know the difference between map data and rendering it.

I have looked at other places in OpenStreetMap and Apple Maps tiles and there is no doubt that they use OSM data, just their own renderer.

Good stuff, thanks for the confirmation! I wonder if Apple will be a powerful new contributor to OSM (I really, really hope so)

Slippy map with the Apple Tiles:

http://www.refnum.com/tmp/apple.html

Visually interesting, but functionally leaves a lot of be desired. Seems more style over substance.

e.g., Zoomed over the entirety of the US - San Jose appears over San Francisco. Entirety of Midwest is empty even though there's plenty of room for some city names. Boston and New York make the cut, but evidently Baltimore is more important than DC :P Jacksonville FL makes the map before Miami or Orlando?

Hell, when zoomed into North Dakota not a single name is drawn.

This is pretty sloppy for Apple standards.

Actually it's a bug in the web app. If you actually look in iPhoto, there are detailed tiles for the region you mention.

Heh. Cork, Ireland: only two features visible from altitude are Apple's own site and - yes - another golf course. They do seem to be big on golf.

They are really inaccurate. The street I live on is completely missing in their tiles.

Looks to be a few years out-of-date, and there's an entirely invented lake right where my local drugstore is.

Apple has been using prettier tile sets in iMovie on OS X – but (just like in this case) only for presentation, never for browsing or when you actually want to use maps.

I don’t think this indicates anything.

(Also: Those tiles are fine for presentation purposes but not even close to what Google offers otherwise. The tiles for Germany are horrible. Some cities don’t show up at all, some show up twice. There is no consistency, no rhyme, no reason. And that’s only the fundamentals, not even whether I can comfortably search for Italian restaurants.)

Here is a great resource to compare Apple tiles and OpenStreetMap tiles at the same time:

http://ivan.sanchezortega.es/leaflet-apple.html

Using iPhoto on my iPhone 4s right now — the maps are ... weird. Italic serif fonts, oddly bad anti-aliasing, and off-center-by-2-pixels highway numbers. Feels like it's been upscaled from half resolution as well. It's clearly not Google's maps, but it's also clearly below Apple's normal visual standards.

If it is OSM data then it is a stale cut that is several years out-of-date, more likely it's data pulled from the same origin's as OSM, but with none of OSM's improvements. Map styling is pretty ugly IMHO too. If Apple is going to get serious about the mapping space it needs to start buying data.

I agree. In my area, the Apple maps show some roads which have no existed in decades. I'm pretty sure OSM was preloaded with USGS base maps (which are generally decades old) because when OSM was young, it too suffered from the "obsolete road" problem. Some of the errors I remember from the early OSM maps have been corrected in the Apple maps, but others remain.

At least in the UK the data is certainly from recent OSM as changes I personally made to my local area are clearly present in both.

edit: the OSM mailing list seems to think it's (at least based on) public domain government TIGER and NHD data in the US, but OSM from 1st-7th April 2010 in many (all?) other areas.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball just confirmed that it is in fact using data from Google Maps: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/07/iphoto-maps

It very well could be, but according to other it's polling Apple servers. http://gsp2.apple.com/tile?api=1&style=slideshow&lay...

However, iPhoto (for OS X, also updated today) definitely still is. I wonder how soon Apple plans on completely severing ties with Google Maps.

iPhoto for OS X uses the pretty tile set when in slide show mode. I think it has done for the past few versions.

Interesting indeed. Get the users to slowly get familiarized with their own maps solution before ditching Google Maps.

John Gruber confirmed from Apple that it IS Google Maps data

He's edited it again,

UPDATE 2: OK, what I’m hearing now is that Places still uses Google Maps, but the maps in Journals and slideshows are not using Google Maps, and are Apple’s own stuff

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/07/iphoto-maps

Right so the license says this:

If your application displays Places API data on a map, that map must be provided by Google. Places API responses may include Listings provider attributions in HTML format that must be displayed to the user as provided. Any links included in the HTML must be preserved. We recommend placing this information below any search results or Place Details information.

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/#Limit...

Interesting. They're actually using OpenStreetMap! http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/03/08/welcome-apple/

iOS 6 = Apple Maps? It'd be cool if they could WebGL it so there's no dependency on images.

That would be a violation of the license, right? If you use places, you need to use Google's API to display them.

Look at them. They are the most beautiful tiles I've ever used.

It's not a surprise. Everyone seems to be ditching Google Maps, whether it's because of the new pricing rules or because companies just want to rely less on Google for core functionality. Interesting predicament Google is having.

I think startups with a heavy reliance on Facebook are going to come to the same conclusion in the near future...