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DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

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Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#241

Post by Mindwipe »

dangus wrote: post #100
metildaa wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has taken good stances on most privacy issues, but Apple Maps is poorly run. The main failure is not having something akin to a Google Scout, whereby iOS users could submit info about businesses and streets that lack data. Apple instead hires a ton of contractors in Austin (and now India) to manually trace roads and guess business hours based on anonymized GPS traces. Apple lacks the scale of Google's army of u…

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…

I reported an issue during the iOS 5 launch that never got fixed.

Apple's data is flat out junk in London. Garbage.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#242

Post by bad_user »

I live in Romania.

It depends on the country, but for search what really matters are the points of interest and Apple Maps in my country doesn't have any, whereas OSM and Google Maps are competing head to head.

Even for driving, the OSM apps available, while lower quality, are more reliable when I travel to Bulgaria for example. The penetration of Google Maps in Eastern Europe isn't great and Apple Maps isn't worth bothering with.

Anyway, I wonder why DuckDuckGo is choosing Apple Maps. It makes no sense IMO from a user experience perspective.

Remember that if you're in California or New York, those are the primary markets targeted by all tech companies, so your experience with Apple Maps is not representative of the rest of the world.

In my travels OSM fares quite well in terms of its POS database and is the only one that can compete with Google Maps in that regard.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#243

Post by arrrg »

PunchTornado wrote: post #137
dmix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks more like it has to do with query detection than the lack of results. It clearly didn’t understand the Hong Kong part, which is the main issue.

are people using apple maps completely different than google maps? 90% of the time I use map for searching places, shops etc. If apple maps is not excelling at that, why do people use it?

I have yet to have an enjoyable experience with any maps app looking for places. That experience always seems frustrating to me and no fun at all.

I mostly use maps for finding routes.

I think it’s important that people differentiate between what they are using maps for, since finding places and orienting oneself are very different use cases.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#244

Post by habnds »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43
burlesona wrote: post #40

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…

> 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.

Honest question, why do you say that about privacy? My basic assumption is that all of these mega companies are the same and terrible about privacy. Surprised to hear otherwise.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#246

Post by thekid314 »

bad_user wrote: post #242

I live in Romania. It depends on the country, but for search what really matters are the points of interest and Apple Maps in my country doesn't have any, whereas OSM and Google Maps are competing head to head. Even for driving, the OSM apps available, while lower quality, are more reliable when I travel to Bulgaria for example. The penetration of Google Maps in Eastern Europe isn't great and Apple Maps isn't worth b…

I'd second this, Apple Maps is still useless in Egypt and most of Africa.

There is plenty of room for these tech companies to plow some of their profits into data sets from outside San Francisco.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#247

Post by yoz-y »

bad_user wrote: post #242

I live in Romania. It depends on the country, but for search what really matters are the points of interest and Apple Maps in my country doesn't have any, whereas OSM and Google Maps are competing head to head. Even for driving, the OSM apps available, while lower quality, are more reliable when I travel to Bulgaria for example. The penetration of Google Maps in Eastern Europe isn't great and Apple Maps isn't worth b…

If I am not mistaken OSM will only give you a database but not the map tiles. For that you need to get them from some service such as MapBox, Google or Apple. Usually these are paid by tiles and Apple is currently the cheapest.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#248

Post by rahoulb »

piyush_soni wrote: post #230
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

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.

The only 'values' companies have is to make money. I am surprised people actually believe all those "Mission, vision, values and objectives" statements of big corporations.

As we're talking about maps here ... the only goal I have is to get to Point B. But I can choose to drive myself or take a taxi because I'm in a hurry, cycle because I want to get fit, walk along a busy road or walk through the forest because I want to relax.

Likewise there are many many ways to make money - and when you have other companies who do similar things to you, which route you choose makes you appeal to one sector of the market over another. Differentiation is where vision and values become important (although of course you need to actually turn that into action to be meaningful).

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#249

Post by rahoulb »

habnds wrote: post #244
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

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.

Honest question, why do you say that about privacy? My basic assumption is that all of these mega companies are the same and terrible about privacy. Surprised to hear otherwise.

Apple have made it a point of differentiation against Google and Facebook in particular.

They say that they try to do as much processing on device as possible and when data (for stuff like Maps) is submitted centrally, they anonymise the data collection - so they can learn usage information without knowing who it's from.

We don't know exactly how effective this is, as they are a secretive company, and this doesn't mean that bugs and breaches don't happen. But they make the point that, as their revenue comes from products and services, not targeted advertising, they don't need that data collection in order to grow the business.

Re: DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps

#250

Post by askvictor »

sethhochberg wrote: post #129
dybber wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps doesn’t do bike routes which is reason enough not to use it. Google Maps does a very nice job for bikes. If I should wish something of Google Maps it would be “I bring my bike on the train” routes, which is a very common and nice way to get around here in Denmark at least.

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…

Transit (the app) does a pretty decent job of multimodal including public transport, bikes, and rideshare.
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