[OSM-talk] New OpenStreetMap iPhone Editor - Mapzen POI Collector

[Frederik Ramm]

Nick,

Nick Black wrote:
> Mapzen POI Collector is a free iPhone app that makes it really easy to
> collect POIs for OpenStreetMap. Users locate themselves using the
> iPhone's built in GPS, position a pin at the location of the POI they
> want to add and then choose from a range of pre-selected categories.

I'm lacking an iPhone myself so excuse me if my questions are stupid. 
I'm interested in hearing about some technology aspects behind the POI 
collector (unless these are terribly secret).

I assume that the POI collector not only lets you collect new POIs but 
also modify existing ones. For this, the existing ones must be shown as 
active elements on the map that the device displays. Given that the OSM 
server proper is too slow to answer real-time "give me POIs in my 
vicinity" queries, and given that XAPI is not generally reliable for 
anything commercial grade, I assume that you are using your own 
XAPI-like POI database which tracks changes from the main OSM server and 
feeds them to the iPhone users, is that correct?

Are you simply getting a feed that is close to real-time as possible and 
then let the device send updates directly to the OSM server, and what do 
you do in the hopefully rare case of an editing conflict?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"