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Waze does not use OSM as stated in its FAQ [1]. It uses TIGER from the US Census Bureau at least in the US [2]. Then it augments the maps with proprietary data

by ansy 14y ago

Waze does not use OSM as stated in its FAQ [1]. It uses TIGER from the US Census Bureau at least in the US [2]. Then it augments the maps with proprietary data gathered by users running Waze software on their phones and from people manually contributing corrections to the Waze data set. Waze has gamified this process by awarding achievements for the number of miles driven with the software running and for contributing corrections (e.g. road changes and mistakes). Apple's Maps would benefit from buying Waze because Apple would get access to 1) Waze's accumulated modifications on top of TIGER, 2) Waze's software for collecting and distributing realtime changes to maps and 3) the talent of 80 employees that have deep knowledge of mapping software. The maps from Nokia or TomTom might be better now, but the problem is they may have very inefficient ways of keeping those maps up to date and distributing the updated map data. For example, most GPS units have static map data which get a bulk update once per year. Whereas Google Maps and Waze can get updated maps in near real time along with live traffic information. [1] http://www.waze.com/faq/#14 http://www.waze.com/faq/#14 [2] http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/ http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/

dmorgan 14y ago
>hen it augments the maps with proprietary data gathered by users running Waze software on their phones and from people manually contributing corrections to the Waze data set. All 100 of them?
dpark 14y ago
Thanks for clarifying about their mapping sources. I assume they must do something similar in other countries. As for why Apple would benefit, I'm afraid I don't agree. Sure, having a few dozen more employees with deep mapping experience would probably be great, but I'm not sure it's the real issue. Nor do I think it likely that the user-provided data would trump the quality of any of the major map players at this point. If you look at the complaints that people are making, many of them down to public transit, poor proper name matching, and regional map quality. Of those, I doubt Waze will provide any meaningful improvement for Apple. To my knowledge, they don't touch public transit, because that's counter to their target. I seriously doubt they do well with proper name searches (do they even support it?) because their target is the commuter, not the guy looking for the nearest Chipotle. And for regional quality, I'd bet that they're weakest in the same areas that Apple is weak in. I'm not sure why you think mapping data from Nokia or TomTom would be updated on a yearly schedule. The fact that non-connected GPS devices might be updated on that schedule doesn't mean that their databases are updated on that schedule, or that partners would be limited to updates on that schedule. Nokia and TomTom can, and almost certainly do, update their data constantly, just like Google Maps, and Waze, and undoubtedly Apple as well.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > And for regional quality, I'd bet that they're weakest in the same areas that Apple is weak in. Yup. Japan on Waze: one big undifferentiated blob. Waze seems to be a car routing product, and car routing certainly isn't Apple's weak point...

by ansy 14y ago

dmorgan 14y ago

>hen it augments the maps with proprietary data gathered by users running Waze software on their phones and from people manually contributing corrections to the Waze data set. All 100 of them?

dpark 14y ago

Thanks for clarifying about their mapping sources. I assume they must do something similar in other countries. As for why Apple would benefit, I'm afraid I don't agree. Sure, having a few dozen more employees with deep mapping experience would probably be great, but I'm not sure it's the real issue. Nor do I think it likely that the user-provided data would trump the quality of any of the major map players at this point. If you look at the complaints that people are making, many of them down to public transit, poor proper name matching, and regional map quality. Of those, I doubt Waze will provide any meaningful improvement for Apple. To my knowledge, they don't touch public transit, because that's counter to their target. I seriously doubt they do well with proper name searches (do they even support it?) because their target is the commuter, not the guy looking for the nearest Chipotle. And for regional quality, I'd bet that they're weakest in the same areas that Apple is weak in. I'm not sure why you think mapping data from Nokia or TomTom would be updated on a yearly schedule. The fact that non-connected GPS devices might be updated on that schedule doesn't mean that their databases are updated on that schedule, or that partners would be limited to updates on that schedule. Nokia and TomTom can, and almost certainly do, update their data constantly, just like Google Maps, and Waze, and undoubtedly Apple as well.

snogglethorpe 14y ago
> And for regional quality, I'd bet that they're weakest in the same areas that Apple is weak in. Yup. Japan on Waze: one big undifferentiated blob. Waze seems to be a car routing product, and car routing certainly isn't Apple's weak point...