When Apple first released its iPhoto for iOS in March, many users realized that the company was not using its nemesis’ geo application Google Maps as it usually does but apparently had opted for maps from the OpenStreetMap project. Back then, the Cupertino tech giant offered no official acknowledgement of the team behind the non-profit endeavor which has put in due effort to collect a series of maps from over 500,000 people across the globe. Now however, it seems Apple has had a change of heart and it has listed OpenStreetMap under its “acknowledgements” for the iPhoto application. It can be seen with the latest update for iPhoto.
OpenStreetMap is available for anyone to use but the non-profit project does require that one-line of attribution. Richard Fairhurst, a board member from OpenStreetMap wrote, “The OSM Foundation has made informal contact with staff at Apple and in addition, one of our volunteer mappers who is an iOS developer spoke to the people at Apple. We believe it was the latter that precipitated adding the attribution – it’s great to have such an active and engaged community. With Google deciding to charge companies for heavy use of its Google Maps API, OpenStreetMap which is looking to compete with it might stand a better chance although as of now, it is still ranked at number 7 in terms of most popular online maps according to tracking firm Alexa.
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