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DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

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Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it all the time. In Portland it is as good as GMaps is at navigating fastest route during heavy traffic. Which is to say, not perfect, but adequate. It has yet to take me to the wrong location.

Apple Maps is pretty awful in the Bay Area. My favorite recently was it's insistence that I make a left turn off of Van Ness. Left turns have largely been banned from Van Ness starting with the huge construction project, but the left turn Apple Maps was also demanding was also across a double yellow line where a left turn would've been illegal regardless of construction. Yesterday I was trying to remember if this del…

It probably varies a lot by area, I imagine. My biggest complaint with GMaps vs Apple is that GMaps has a bizarre fascination with asking me to jog over one block from the established route just to get around three blocks of congestion, instead asking me to make a left-hand turn from a side-street with no signal onto a four lane arterial road during rush hour. Yeah, there's a reason that route doesn't have any congestion.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#202
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll believe it when they're both independently audited and found to be measurably better. Apple is incredibly secretive so although they might not end up in headlines, there's no guarantee they're any better than Google.

Their business model doesn’t depend on violating your privacy. Google’s does, it’s that simple.

All corporations' business models relies on maximizing profit however they can and therefore will violate your privacy. It's that simple. Google = Apple.

(Hint: your pithy statement is equally meaning free)

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#203

It's a shame they didn't invest in OpenStreetMap. Their values would align significantly, and OpenStreetMap has excellent road and path coverage in my experience (though struggles with Points of Interest).

They do invest in improving the project https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#204
post #200
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their business model is only revealed to us to the extent of what we can publicly observe, but otherwise unknown to both me and you. Like parent said, Apple is very secretive. There is nothing stopping them from having their hardware business and making money from your data.

Their financials are public.

That doesn’t mean there will be a line item on the income statement labeled “evil anti-privacy stuff - 2 billion”

It’s trivial to lump things together in GAAP accounting statements.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any major mapping platform which does multimodal journeys very well yet, whoever figures it out first will probably see me switch to their app immediately. Bonus points if they build in cost optimization, ie, "take the train 80% of the way there and then Uber for the last leg, optionally saving you 20 mins for an extra $8, or bring a bike to save 10 mins for no extra cost". I'm reading that Citymappe…

Yeah, I'd really like something that can solve for "I want to drive to a train station, take a train, and then whatever form of transit can take me the last mile". It's a not-uncommon case for me and it seems both Apple and Google could both basically solve it if only the UI had a way to ask.

They would have to have live price data across multiple vendors -say uber, lyft, every train station, every bus station, city taxes, if you can bring a bike or not, etc.

Getting all that data for a single city would be impressive, let alone around the world.

Not that Google couldn't do it of course.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#206
post #100

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This is not 100% true, if you go to an existing business listing and scroll to the bottom there's a "report an issue" option. Apple has fixed my reported issues within a few days in the past. In another sense I'm not sure why it should matter to the end user how many interns Apple hires to do things behind the scenes. I'm imagining that Apple is well aware of these shortcomings. Not only that I wonder if operational…

These user reports take weeks to months to get triaged, making many rather useless.

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not saying it’s clearly better than Google If privacy is worth something to you, it’s clearly better than Google. I, too, use Apple as my primary map. In many cases, Apple Maps is better Google. The ones in which it’s behind are more than made up for by Apple’s values.

Having tried the switch recently, Apple maps is still way too incorrect for anything more than general bearing finding in many places. Even addresses in Emeryville, CA - across the street from Pixar headquarters - were off by about a half mile! And in that case, something felt off and I’m glad I checked Google Maps before walking.

Yeah, I use Apple maps a lot, but sometimes have to use google because it is still more accurate.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps keeps confusing California St. and California Ave. in San Francisco. One is in downtown SF and the other is in Treasure Island, a part of the city surrounded on all sides by water only accessible via the Bay Bridge.

What do you mean by "confusing"? They have different names. If you select "California St" you get California St, and if you select "California Ave" you get California Ave.

Why am I being further downvoted after the issue was confirmed downthread as user error?

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not saying it’s clearly better than Google If privacy is worth something to you, it’s clearly better than Google. I, too, use Apple as my primary map. In many cases, Apple Maps is better Google. The ones in which it’s behind are more than made up for by Apple’s values.

Privacy is worth a lot to me, but Apple Maps does not have bicycle directions. So no, it is not clearly better than Google. I do use it for driving and walking directions though.

Try komoot for bike directions. in europe it was working incredibly well for bike commuting. I made like 60km per day.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#210

This is cool to see, and I think should be a virtuous cycle. As I understand it, maps is the kind of thing where more usage really helps make the map better, and while DDG doesn’t bring the scale of being the iphone’s default map, it should be adding a non-trivial amount of traffic. I’ve used Apple Maps as my primary map since it came out, and I’ve only gotten a wrong location one time in literally thousands of searc…

The Google mapping properties are definitely on the decline. My theory is that they are less critical to the advertising business. For navigation, Waze can't find a route 1/5 times for a longer trip, and Google Maps gets weirder and more hostile to use every few months. For me, they have tweaked their routing engine to be more "creative" and direct you in weird ways. Big G is too fat and happy and they need a challen…

Directing drivers "weird ways" may be a strategy to lower congestion. If all drivers take the same optimal route, and the route exceeds its capacity and clogs, everyone loses.
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