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Mac OS X 10.5 gets geotagging support

The new Leopard version of Mac OS X will show users where on a map their geotagged photos were taken.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Stephen Shankland

Apple

There were a lot of one-liners to sift through in Apple's feature list for the Leopard, the Mac OS X 10.5 update due Friday, so I thought it worthwhile to call out the geotagging support.

The Preview software, which lets users get details on files they're browsing, "pinpoints the location where you took the photo on a world map," according to Apple's Leopard feature list. "From there you can even open the GPS location in Google Maps."

I gather from the adverb "even" that I should read this news with a sense of amazement, but really converting latitude-longitude coordinates in a file to a dot on a map isn't rocket science. What's more notable is how rare this feature remains in photo viewer software. The fact that Flickr has 42 million geotagged photos should be a wake-up call that photo enthusiasts are beginning to embrace this technology.