GasBuddy & GreatSchools now providing data for Apple Maps [u]
Third-party data presented to users within Apple Maps may soon include local gas prices and school locations, thanks to new partnerships with GasBuddy and GreatSchools.
The new data sources for Apple Maps were recently added to Apple's official acknowledgement page for its iOS and OS X mapping solution. Their appearance was first discovered on Wednesday by AppleMapsMarketing.
Though gas prices and school information are not yet shown when searching on Apple Maps, the deals with GasBuddy/OpenStore and GreatSchools would suggest that Apple plans to integrate the information at some point in the future.
Another minor addition to the Maps partner list is the National Land Survey of Finland Topographic Database.
Big things are expected for Maps in 2015, whether Apple ties those updates to its anticipated iOS 9 update or otherwise. In particular, Maps in its current state lacks transit data, but that's expected to be addressed thanks to Apple's acquisitions of HopStop and Embark.
Other areas where Apple is expected to expand its mapping service are crowdsourced traffic information and indoor location tracking --?areas hinted at by acquisitions and patent filings made by the Cupertino company.
Last year, Apple bolstered Maps by adding 10 new sources for business listings. They were DAC Group, Location3 Media, Marquette Group, Placeable, PositionTech, SIM Partners, SinglePlatform, UBL, Yext, and Yodle.
The initial business data for Maps, when it first launched, came from Yelp, Factual, and Neustar/Localeze. Apple's featured Maps partner is TomTom.
Update: Apple also added business listings data from Yext and mapping data from Land Information New Zealand in its latest Apple Maps update.
The new data sources for Apple Maps were recently added to Apple's official acknowledgement page for its iOS and OS X mapping solution. Their appearance was first discovered on Wednesday by AppleMapsMarketing.
Though gas prices and school information are not yet shown when searching on Apple Maps, the deals with GasBuddy/OpenStore and GreatSchools would suggest that Apple plans to integrate the information at some point in the future.
Another minor addition to the Maps partner list is the National Land Survey of Finland Topographic Database.
Big things are expected for Maps in 2015, whether Apple ties those updates to its anticipated iOS 9 update or otherwise. In particular, Maps in its current state lacks transit data, but that's expected to be addressed thanks to Apple's acquisitions of HopStop and Embark.
Other areas where Apple is expected to expand its mapping service are crowdsourced traffic information and indoor location tracking --?areas hinted at by acquisitions and patent filings made by the Cupertino company.
Last year, Apple bolstered Maps by adding 10 new sources for business listings. They were DAC Group, Location3 Media, Marquette Group, Placeable, PositionTech, SIM Partners, SinglePlatform, UBL, Yext, and Yodle.
The initial business data for Maps, when it first launched, came from Yelp, Factual, and Neustar/Localeze. Apple's featured Maps partner is TomTom.
Update: Apple also added business listings data from Yext and mapping data from Land Information New Zealand in its latest Apple Maps update.
Comments
Isn't Trapster a dead product?. I thought they stopped service a few months back? I was using them all the time and now just use Waze.
These companies could just partner up with giggle as well.
But on the AppStore , the last update of greatschool is dec 2012.... Look like an abandonware
I tried for months to get the location data for my kids' schools corrected. They finally fixed one and deleted the other in the process. I'll be interested to see if this fixes that.
Edit: Nope. Not only that, they've deleted another school in the process.
Great, but outside the U.S. all these extra map sources are meaningless. Quite frankly it feels like being a second rate citizen using maps and other Apple services in any other country. Sigh
If it helps, we feel like second rate citizens using Apple Maps in the US, too.
I think that's excessively hyperbolic. That said, what I don't get about Apple and their Maps solution is that the areas they are lacking all solved with money, and most of that is simply by using manpower. They could have setup a call center years ago in some impoverished English speaking area, like Detroit, that houses a 1000 employees that do no nothing but make sure every business address in the US properly labeled and accounted for. You do this on a grid basis with very basic tools, like Yelp, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, physical phone books, public record searches, etc. Most easy, some hard, but the less obvious ones could be mostly addressed by the website they setup very late to have errors and omissions addressed. Overall, I don't see any real issue for someone like Apple to have made Apple Maps the most accurate mapping solution in the world in short time.