Geo-maven Marc Prioleau pointed me to a copyright page earlier today that appears to reveal the identities of some or all the data partners Apple is using for its new Maps product. Here they are in the order they appear on the page:
- TomTom
- Acxiom
- CoreLogic
- DigitalGlobe
- DMTI
- Getchee
- Intermap
- LeadDog
- Localeze
- MapData Sciences Pty Ltd.
- MDA Information Systems, Inc
- Urban Mapping
- Waze
- Yelp
I may not have captured them all.
The crowd-sourced traffic would appear to be coming from Waze, at least partially. Yelp is providing the reviews but perhaps not the listings data, which are coming from Acxiom, Localeze and TomTom.
Some of the companies are specific to non-US markets. It’s also interesting to see that Apple has integrated Urban Mapping neighborhood data in there, suggesting that if one searches on neighborhood terms (even informal terms or names) the map will return results. Google was a licensee at one time of this database (I believe); I don’t know if that’s still the case.
What do all of you think of this list and are you aware of other data providers being used but not present here?
June 11th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
[...] be a major international data provider for the new Apple Maps, as well as Acxiom, Localeze and Waze among others. Related EntriesGoogle Introduces Offline Maps For Mobile, Claims A Billion Users Globally For [...]
June 11th, 2012 at 11:34 pm
[...] today, the shape of Apple’s local search strategy started to become clearer. Greg Sterling pointed out this list of Apple’s copyright attribution for their mapping product. From the list it is [...]
June 12th, 2012 at 12:01 am
[...] TomTom appears to be a major international data provider for the new Apple Maps, as well as Acxiom, Localeze and Waze among others. [...]
June 12th, 2012 at 1:03 am
Greg,
View source on the URL of map sources and you will see more sources there. The page is not displaying the full list for some reason.
My hunch is Apple will lean heavily on TomTom’s data (i.e. TeleAtlas) for a couple years. Then they may do what Google did – dump TeleAtlas and create their own data sets for the US and major metros around the world, but still use TeleAtlas and others selectively like Google still does. It wasn’t that long ago that Google was using Navteq, then TeleAtlas and they dumped TeleAtlas in Oct 2009.
I am a huge OpenStreetMap fan myself, and it would be really cool if Apple moved towards using OpenStreetMap as the main data source and helped pump resources into the effort. If anyone has the resources to give OSM a major boost, Apple sure does.
Will be interesting to see how they leverage parcel data from CoreLogic.
The whole mapping data source issue for consumer mapping is fairly involved and a blog called Exploring Local dives pretty deep into all of the issues.
June 12th, 2012 at 1:25 am
[...] http://www.screenwerk.com/2012/06/11/who-are-the-apple-maps-data-providers-here-they-are/ Filed Under: Uncategorized [...]
June 12th, 2012 at 3:59 am
Thanks for this info Greg. Great undercover work!
June 12th, 2012 at 6:00 am
[...] today, the shape of Apple’s local search strategy started to become clearer. Greg Sterling pointed out this list of Apple’s copyright attribution for their mapping product. From the list it is [...]
June 12th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Big news and great work on asking this question – have you got any idea how local businesses will manage their data or will they need to manage it through the data providers?
June 13th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
[...] business listings around the world via its various data partnerships. As our Greg Sterling has pointed out on his own blog, Apple’s primary local business data providers appear to be Localeze, Acxiom [...]
June 13th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
[...] business listings around the world via its various data partnerships. As our Greg Sterling has pointed out on his own blog, Apple’s primary local business data providers appear to be Localeze, Acxiom and [...]
June 13th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
[...] business listings around the world via its various data partnerships. As our Greg Sterling has pointed out on his own blog, Apple’s primary local business data providers appear to be Localeze, Acxiom and [...]
June 15th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
After digging around some more, I found that MapData Sciences Pty Ltd is an authorized NAVTEQ(NOKIA) Maps distributor. I’m wondering if NAVTEQ’s map data is being relayed to Apple in the background through this partnership.
http://www.mapds.com.au/Products/DigitalMappingDatafromNavteq/tabid/187/Default.aspx
June 18th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Michael: Interesting. Nokia would probably not be happy about that.
June 18th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
[...] is relying on a number of partners, most notably TomTom (TeleAtlas) and Localeze for local POI and business listings data. However [...]
June 25th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
[...] Greg Sterling discovered a list of the companies Apple is working with to populate Maps with local information – most importantly, local businesses. For local businesses and brands, this list represents the key to being well represented in Apple Maps. Core local data providers include – [...]
June 26th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
[...] Sterling, who has been following this story closely, has pointed out that while Yelp is providing its more than 27 million local reviews to Maps, it likely isn’t [...]
June 26th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
[...] [...]
June 27th, 2012 at 2:39 am
[...] Sterling, who has been following this story closely, has pointed out that while Yelp is providing its more than 27 million local reviews to Maps, it likely isn’t [...]
September 19th, 2012 at 3:27 am
[...] referring to TomTom as the primary data provider for iOS 6 maps. There are a lot of companies on the copyright page but the general sense is that TomTom is providing much of the local POI [...]
October 4th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
[...] Die Karteninformationen bei Apple basieren sowohl auf Firmenakquisitionen in der Vergangenheit als auch auf lizensierten Daten von anderen Herstellern. Eine (nicht komplette) Übersicht bietet z. B. Greg Sterling: [...]
October 29th, 2012 at 11:08 am
[...] ist es noch nicht genau bekannt wie Apple die Daten sammelt und in die Maps einarbeitet. Gemäss Screenwerk.com bezieht Apple seine Geo-Map Daten von diesen [...]