New iPhone will expose Cincinnati’s lack of open data.
With the imminent introduction of the next generation iPhone from Apple, the new phone and iOS interface is poised to eliminate Google Maps in favor of Apple’s own mapping software package. The move, which will come by fall of this year, provides driving directions but relies on third-party applications to provide transit directions. The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) is one of the top ten agencies that does not provide the necessary open data necessary to create a transit app to replace Google Maps. More from The Atlantic:
The strategy relies on a pretty big assumption, and third-party developers need open data to build these tools…Many cities still aren’t sharing their data, including big ones like Atlanta, Phoenix, and Detroit. Along with hundreds of other metros, these cities do provide their transit data directly to Google for use in Google Maps, using a standardized format Google developed known as the General Transit Feed Specification (or GTFS). Giving data to Google is not, however, what developers mean when they talk about “open data.”