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DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

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Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#241

Post by Twisell »

jchw wrote: post #191
mrmondo wrote: post #182

Personally - I find Apple maps (now, not at all in the early days) much better than Google maps - except for one thing: On several occasions where I enter a street address and if it's in a heavily populated area particularly if it's on an intersection the pointer will be in the wrong place on the street - I've reported these when I've encountered them and Apple has fixed each one within 24-48 hours but it's still a b…

One thing Google Maps does have that I don't think Apple Maps has is crowd sourced edits. You can actually propose edits to Google Maps as a user. It's especially prominent with business information, but it is even possible to adjust road geometry.

There is a reporting tool on both iOS/macOS Maps and you can input suggested edit such as displacing POI to its correct position.

Used that in the past and got a notification when suggestion was accepted & pushed to the map.

I’d guess it’s curated somehow.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#242

Post by aphextron »

sngz wrote: post #233
aphextron wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general! Because it sucks. Isn’t that obvious? There’s no point in having a feature that nobody uses. I switched to DDG a few months ago and this has always been the one weakness. This is really good news IMO. Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point. You can argue all day that of…

ive been using it for a few months now. its not as good as google maps but definitely doesn't suck. and certainly is better than apple maps.

>ive been using it for a few months now. its not as good as google maps but definitely doesn't suck. and certainly is better than apple maps.

I've also found the mapping aspects to be ok, but the search results are truly abysmal in comparison to Apple Maps. Point-to-point direction finding is of course a solved, commoditized technical problem this point. But the real special sauce is in combining that with real time traffic info and highly relevant local search results, which Apple does far better than any open source offering I've seen.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#243

Post by somebodynew »

jchw wrote: post #191
mrmondo wrote: post #182

Personally - I find Apple maps (now, not at all in the early days) much better than Google maps - except for one thing: On several occasions where I enter a street address and if it's in a heavily populated area particularly if it's on an intersection the pointer will be in the wrong place on the street - I've reported these when I've encountered them and Apple has fixed each one within 24-48 hours but it's still a b…

One thing Google Maps does have that I don't think Apple Maps has is crowd sourced edits. You can actually propose edits to Google Maps as a user. It's especially prominent with business information, but it is even possible to adjust road geometry.

Apple Maps allows this, at least on macOS. I've never looked for the option on iOS but I assume it's there somewhere too.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#244

Post by thinkloop »

bduerst wrote: post #201
SEJeff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and from a purely data privacy angle, Apple is legitimately better than Google.

How so? Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1] Apple even updated their TOS forcing Chinese users to agree to it or drop service. [2] Google got flak for just considering it with Dragonfly, but Apple actually did it . [1] https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-i…

Boycotting of countries or not is one thing. Once in a country and following the law, Apple's business model is simply more conducive to privacy. Unlike Google, they are not reliant on the collection and analysis of data. On the contrary, like DDG, they use privacy as a differentiator and advantage. The only thing you can trust about companies is their business models.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#245

Post by morganvachon »

gowld wrote: post #41
mtmail wrote: post #9

Some paint it as if the main reason to switch was privacy ( https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because... "DuckDuckGo switches to Apple Maps, because privacy"), but the previous map provider was mapbox (openstreetmap plus commercial sources) and I doubt mapbox collected more data than Apple is now.

DDG's main marketing model is talking about how they believe Google is privacy threat, so they'll highlight that angle in any change.

They don't just believe Google is a privacy threat, they know it. We all do. You don't have to use weasel words when discussing a known quantity.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#246

Post by smokeyj »

Aunche wrote: post #203
johnsea wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google _is_ a privacy threat. Completely unrelated to DDG, marketing or believe. One Google with thousand tentacles...

I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much DDG's marketing is focused on trashing their competition. They deliberately obfuscate privacy issues to strengthen their narrative. Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only because they're small. I doubt they'll stay that way when they capture a significant market share.

As a DDG user I share your same skepticism. But I also believe that privacy will become a premium feature, even a symbol of status - similar to the iPhone/iMessage today. Poor people will buy devices that are subsidized with "targeted advertisements" and Facebook apps they can't uninstall. The premium market will pay to not deal with this nonsense.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#247

Post by xoa »

jchw wrote: post #191
mrmondo wrote: post #182

Personally - I find Apple maps (now, not at all in the early days) much better than Google maps - except for one thing: On several occasions where I enter a street address and if it's in a heavily populated area particularly if it's on an intersection the pointer will be in the wrong place on the street - I've reported these when I've encountered them and Apple has fixed each one within 24-48 hours but it's still a b…

One thing Google Maps does have that I don't think Apple Maps has is crowd sourced edits. You can actually propose edits to Google Maps as a user. It's especially prominent with business information, but it is even possible to adjust road geometry.

You can do that with Apple Maps as well, I can't say "always" but for a long time at least, though I can't speak for how fast they'll necessarily deal with it. But if you set a marker then there will be a "Report an Issue" button down below at the bottom of its info panel/pane. Amongst the options there is "Add a Place" which can also be a street, and there is a free form "Other Issue" (which you can attach a photo to as well) catch-all. I don't think Apple has any more advanced stuff like user proposed road geometry editing, which is too bad because it's painfully obvious where some simple algorithm has worked off a satellite image vs it having some human attention.

But there is definitely some edit crowd sourcing, it may just suffer from a smaller or less motivated user base. Speaking of the latter, I've never seen Apple really try to incentivize it either, whereas at least at one point Google had a fairly fleshed out actual gamification for Google Maps where people could sign up to be "Local Guides", earn points for constructive actions, and get badges that could be publicly displayed. Essentially free for Google (dunno if they ever gave anything else to top editors for PR, but they didn't promise it) but even simple public recognition of an icon can be surprisingly motivating for a lot of people. I don't know how active that still is and also vaguely remember stories about editing tools getting shut down a few years back, but at any rate Apple has never really tried anything like that at all AFAIK. Not that as a corporate culture they've ever really gotten gaming, period.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#248

Post by morganvachon »

bduerst wrote: post #201
SEJeff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and from a purely data privacy angle, Apple is legitimately better than Google.

How so? Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1] Apple even updated their TOS forcing Chinese users to agree to it or drop service. [2] Google got flak for just considering it with Dragonfly, but Apple actually did it . [1] https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-i…

> Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1]

They shared all their Chinese users' iCloud data. It's a huge distinction and I feel like you paraphrased it deliberately to try to make Apple appear to have sold out all of their users worldwide. While what they did in China is terrifying in general, it doesn't compromise security for any Apple user outside of China as you very strongly implied it did.

Here's the very first sentence from the link you posted (emphasis mine):

> A state-owned telecommunications company in China now stores the iCloud data for Apple’s China-based users.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#249

Post by latexr »

Aunche wrote: post #203
johnsea wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google _is_ a privacy threat. Completely unrelated to DDG, marketing or believe. One Google with thousand tentacles...

I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much DDG's marketing is focused on trashing their competition. They deliberately obfuscate privacy issues to strengthen their narrative. Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only because they're small. I doubt they'll stay that way when they capture a significant market share.

> Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only because they're small.

Only because they are small? That seems to imply that if they ever get big, they’ll no doubt become evil, privacy-wise. Apple proves that does not have to be the case.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#250

Post by Brakenshire »

tracker1 wrote: post #218
Aeolun wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much at all. In fact, since the tiles are only generated once, they could stick a CDN in front and never have to worry about anything but data transfer costs afterwards.

That CDN isn't free all the content and traffic overhead has costs, CDN charges you for each request, and every byte sent. On a small (under a million users a day) application it may not be that much... but even ten of millions of users a day, it costs a LOT Hell, why do you think google invested so much time into image compression tech to save a few bytes here and there.

I doubt it’s much, the whole OSM infrastructure used to be handled as a favour by one of the London universities. I doubt DDG Maps is operating at significantly higher scale, especially once you take into account they just have to serve static data.
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