The article claims that it doesn't appear that they're using OSM data, but if you look at the label of the green area on Apple's map and OSM, they're both labeled Great Salterns Golf Corse[sic]. So, it seems likely that they're using at least some data from OSM.
Apple has been using prettier tile sets in iMovie on OS X – but (just like in this case) only for presentation, never for browsing or when you actually want to use maps.<p>I don’t think this indicates anything.<p>(Also: Those tiles are fine for presentation purposes but not even close to what Google offers otherwise. The tiles for Germany are horrible. Some cities don’t show up at all, some show up twice. There is no consistency, no rhyme, no reason. And that’s only the fundamentals, not even whether I can comfortably search for Italian restaurants.)
Here is a great resource to compare Apple tiles and OpenStreetMap tiles at the same time:<p><a href="http://ivan.sanchezortega.es/leaflet-apple.html" rel="nofollow">http://ivan.sanchezortega.es/leaflet-apple.html</a>
Using iPhoto on my iPhone 4s right now — the maps are ... weird. Italic serif fonts, oddly bad anti-aliasing, and off-center-by-2-pixels highway numbers. Feels like it's been upscaled from half resolution as well. It's clearly not Google's maps, but it's also clearly below Apple's normal visual standards.
If it is OSM data then it is a stale cut that is several years out-of-date, more likely it's data pulled from the same origin's as OSM, but with none of OSM's improvements. Map styling is pretty ugly IMHO too.
If Apple is going to get serious about the mapping space it needs to start buying data.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball just confirmed that it is in fact using data from Google Maps: <a href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/07/iphoto-maps" rel="nofollow">http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/07/iphoto-maps</a>
It's not a surprise. Everyone seems to be ditching Google Maps, whether it's because of the new pricing rules or because companies just want to rely less on Google for core functionality. Interesting predicament Google is having.<p>I think startups with a heavy reliance on Facebook are going to come to the same conclusion in the near future...