Apple iPhoto ditches Google Maps

Apple has ditched Google Maps for its iPhoto application, becoming the second company to shift to an open source alternative in the last ten days.

The iPhone manufacturer will use data from OpenStreetMap to show where a photograph was taken.

“The desktop version of iPhoto, and indeed all of Apple’s iOS apps until now, use Google Maps,” OpenStreetMap said. “The new iPhoto for iOS, however, uses Apple’s own map tiles – made from OpenStreetMap.”

The crowd-sourced data will be tweaked and re-presented by Apple, although the dataset set being used is, according to OpenStreetMap, an older version of the mapping data from 2010.

Last week, location service FourSquare said it too would be moving away from Google's maps, citing changes to the way the company charged for access to its information.

Google announced changes to its Maps API rates last year, with fees of $4 per thousand requests among other licencing models.

Posted in: API, apple, foursquare, google, google map, iphoto, openstreetmap