[OSM-talk] Nice problem to have

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Fri Mar 9 07:50:49 GMT 2012


Hi,

On 03/09/12 01:10, Martijn van Exel wrote:
> http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/08/apple-using-openstreetmap-data-in-iphoto-for-ios/
> - interesting to see the irrational Apple fanboy commentary..

It's a recurring motive. Company switches to OSM - users complain. 
Almost identical statements can be found in the discussion threads from 
Skobbler's switch to OSM in the beginning of 2010 (two years ago - they 
should get a honourable mention on switch2osm.org!), or when 
geocaching.com started using OSM, or Foursquare, or now, Apple.

In most of these cases, the company making the switch took great care to 
explain to their users/customers why they were doing it, and what 
advantages they saw (even those for whom it was a pure, un-emotional 
business decision). This often helped take the edge out of the switch. 
Over and above what was required by the license, many of these companies 
also supported OSM with funds, data, or application development (or at 
least promised to do so).

I shall be interested to see what Apple's communications strategy is 
towards OSM.

I'm a stranger to the Apple world but if they are subject to the same 
kinds of cock-ups as ordinary companies then I'd guess that this might 
well be a temporary thing, where their homemade solution wasn't ready by 
the deadline and so they quickly needed something else to fill in. 
Nobody who seriously considers working with OSM would use data that is 
almost two years old?

Bye
Frederik

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



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