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Amazon Location Service

aws.amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Location Service

#31

Post by addicted »

christocracy wrote: post #29
nickpatrick wrote: post #24

If you're looking for a simple, polished, developer-friendly alternative, check out Radar ( https://radar.io ). Think Twilio/Braze/Amplitude/Segment/Radar vs. SNS/Pinpoint/EventBridge/Location Service.

Tim Hortons in Canada is being probed for using Radar Labs in their mobile app. "Tim Hortons' parent company, Toronto-based Restaurant Brands partners with Radar Labs, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company , which provides location-based data analytics, and helps the Tims app to identify when users are near competing fast-food restaurants and coffee shops." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-privacy-wat...

This sounds like a lack of full disclosure and/or the app not placing appropriate limits.

This hardly seems like an issue with the underlying API.

Re: Amazon Location Service

#33

Post by kevinventullo »

BoumTAC wrote: post #30

why nobody use openstreetmap ? I was always wondering why google concurrent don't use OSM, the quality is better than here and they would benefit a lot from OSM to compete against google. I don't understand why microsoft doesn't use OSM for bing map to replace their shitty map and why facebook doesn't use OSM to display map.

Facebook does use OpenStreetMap: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/04/17/facebook-ope...

Re: Amazon Location Service

#34

Post by Dig1t »

Now I can say I'd rather have ALS than use Google Maps.

Joking aside, this is cool, pricing is good. Hopefully the mobile SDK provides more features than Google Maps'.

Re: Amazon Location Service

#35

Post by one2know »

guruz wrote: post #32

> You can choose between maps and map styles provided by Esri and by HERE Technologies, I wonder why not use the HERE or Esri APIs directly? Is this just a marketing gimmick so Amazon can complete their offering? https://developer.here.com/

Because then Amazon can't track all your users. Imagine a delivery company uses Amazon's API for its in-truck apps or route planning. Amazon drinks your data, it drinks it up.

Re: Amazon Location Service

#36

Post by [deleted] »

BoumTAC wrote: post #30

why nobody use openstreetmap ? I was always wondering why google concurrent don't use OSM, the quality is better than here and they would benefit a lot from OSM to compete against google. I don't understand why microsoft doesn't use OSM for bing map to replace their shitty map and why facebook doesn't use OSM to display map.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Location Service

#38

Post by mike_d »

swiftcoder wrote: post #26
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #9

Honestly, I'm surprised that Amazon hasn't done this sooner. Google and to a lesser extent Apple both have a huge lead in this space. Amazon is one of the few companies that can afford the massive capital cost to create this kind of service. I am curious about the quality though. It seems like they're just reselling from 3rd party data providers. Hopefully, we see this forcing price cuts to Google's Maps API at some…

Amazon acquired a mapping startup and built out a full 1st party maps product for the FirePhone launch. I'd assumed that was discarded along with the next-gen FirePhone - but it's possible bits and pieces of that effort ended up being integrated into this offering.

If I had to guess, the maps stuff was rolled into the app for delivery drivers. This offering is probably a spin out of the backend for that, since it seems very focused on asset tracking and route optimization.

Re: Amazon Location Service

#39

Post by danielovichdk »

To me this is clear indicator that Amazon itself is entering the transport business, like the company has also already stated.

Geofencing, tracking and location is of course key to their own delivery services they are building.

I would be very interested in this if i was still in the transportation and shipping business

Re: Amazon Location Service

#40

Post by alien_ »

ourcat wrote: post #23
object_Object wrote: post #2

What OSS has AWS cannibalised and stuck an API on to put this out? Doesn't seem obvious from the post.

here.com ? (That's what Amazon UK uses for location tracking maps)

Amazon has been using HERE maps internally for many years. It was the map included in the Fire phone and tablet, and also it's used in the online shop, such as for showing the parcel on the map, among other things. When I left HERE it was also heavily using AWS, so it's a two-way relationship.

For those who may not be familiar with HERE, they're huge on Enterprise, especially in Automotive, logistics but also on public sector.

HERE used to be part of Nokia and used to power their maps application. It's now owned by a wide consortium where the well-known German car making companies still have a majority. They also heavily use HERE maps and location based services, as many other car makers do. Not sure if they still do, but when I left, it was heavily used by Microsoft for Bing maps. Yahoo and Facebook maps were all based on the HERE map data and used many of the the same backend services.

Note: I currently work at AWS and previously worked at HERE but this message is not written on behalf of my current/former employer.

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