OSM is orders of magnitude worse than Apple's current data set in my area, and I doubt that's unusual.
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.
> OSM is orders of magnitude worse than Apple's current data set in my area, and I doubt that's unusual.
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 was about to respond to the GP asking for details because where I am and as mainly a pedestrian and cyclist OSM is really the only decent solution (unless you like walking 30minutes in a large circle rather than 5).
I think Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best way out of this debacle.
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.
> Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best way out of this debacle
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.
Couldn’t they just fork OSM? If OSM wants to merge, go for it. Otherwise we have a new opensource map project. Not sure why we care if the original project lives or dies.
I guess they could. But since they have to do everything themselves anyway, why bother? I'm not sure about the legal aspect, but even so, I'm pretty sure Apple can use OSM's data in one way or another would they need to (in fact, article states that they did use it in the earlier versions of the map). And since they are making the map on their own, nothing forces them to open-source the DB right now: should they decide that it will be beneficial they can do it any time in the future. And should they decide it isn't: they just don't.
Yes they could. The OSM licence requires a share-alike, so OSM would be able to use anything Apple add, but all that's required is a database dump. It would be up to the OSM community to "merge" it back in if they wanted.
WebKit is Apple's project. It doesn't make sense to say WebKit gets back a lot because it's their own project. It's forked from KHTML, but hey nowadays even Konqueror uses WebKit.
I think it's kinda like Google working with Android as an open source project. Google makes money on Android primarily by using Android as a means of delivering the Google ecosystem. They don't care that it's open source because they don't make money by selling it.
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.
Yeah, I’ve nothing better to do than roam around fixing maps. It’s not like I have a daily job or anything. /s
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.
I've fixed a few things in Open Street Map. But, for example, the city line for Redwood City CA at its western edge is totally bogus. That needs to be fixed by automatic reference to some authoritative source, like the USGS database.
i think there was an article a while ago about the OSM community not liking the idea of bots and automation, and how it’s a big problem for people “graffitiing” the maps because it’s manual effort to reset
It's not so much vandalism that is the issue, it's that rampant automatic edits can end up removing meaning from the data (by smoothing out meaningful differences and the like) or if they aren't careful enough, create a giant mess.
With code you need to be able to programme. For OSM you just need to know something about an area. Do you know what the name of that street is? That there's an italian restaurant on that corner? What the house number of that building is? etc etc
> Yeah, I’ve nothing better to do than roam around fixing maps. It’s not like I have a daily job or anything. /s
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.
> 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 not more than a few hours working on it in total.
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.
> 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.
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.
The most likely time for somebody to notice a problem is a) when they are on the move, and b) when it's a location unfamiliar to them. These are terrible circumstances to expect somebody to stop what they are doing and edit a map.
OSM is great for walking and cycling because pedestrians and cyclist are flexible enough to make small detours to map missing paths. In cities it's usually good enough if your destination is in the right spot, you can navigate by walking generally in the right direction. Finding potential shortcuts and getting to map terra incognita is just an added bonus.
And while I really like OSM I must say Apple got it right. The "report an issue" interface on iOS Map is easy to use on the go and requests are actually assigned to people who fix the map. I’ve signaled a few mistake and they all have been corrected.
It's not as complicated as fixing a software bug, but it's not trivial for the first-time user either.
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".
__sr__ you're aware open source actually works. Largely because a tonne of people have entirely the opposite attitude to you for social tasks? Unless you haven't noticed Wikipedia exists... I worked on that long before it was mainstream or generally useful.
One of my besties is the OSM guru & evangelist (day job) and Ingress fanatic (that annoying friend).
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.
For me the issue is more that they don’t seem to be able to pull it off.
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 key part in what you said is "my area". There are a great many areas in which Apple Maps is fantastic - usually well-populated cities or surrounding areas in the US.
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.
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.