iOS 5 Legal Doc Reveals Map Data Sources (for Apple mapping app?)
While Apple did re-up with Google for mapping (APB coverage), a close look at the disclaimers (full text) for the new operating system reveals a long list of well-known, more obscure and even some crowdsourcing mapping players per MacRumors:
• CoreLogic offers Parcel data which marks boundaries for of properties to provide positional accuracy in location-based solutions.
• Getchee provides location and market data on China, India and Southeast Asia.
• Increment P Corp provides location and traffic data for Japan.
• Localeze provides local business listings.
• MapData Sciences Pty Ltd. Inc provides mapping data for Australia and New Zealand.
• DMTI provides postal code data for Canada.
• TomTom offers global TeleAtlas mapping data which is also licensed by Google for their map solution.
• Urban Mapping provides in-depth neighborhood data such as crime, demographics, school performance, economic indicators and more.
• Waze offers real-time maps and traffic information based on crowd sourced data.
The most interesting one on the list is Waze, which is cited: "Map data © 2011 Waze." Note, it's not traffic data, but map data. One of waze's goals is to build its own map the US (as it did in Israel). So, it' could be Apple is using part of the Waze's basemap and/or tapping it for traffic data, too. That'd be a huge bump for the company and may also be the "user generated traffic" app Apple hinted at after the "storing your data" fiasco.
