DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#51

Post by FiveSquared » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

devereaux wrote: post #22

reaperducer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's regional. For a long time (in internet time), Apple Maps were clearly inferior to Google Maps. These days, it's more nuanced. In some geographies they have parity. In a select few, Apple is ahead. For most, though, Google is better. For speed and privacy reasons, I check Apple Maps first. If I don't find what I'm looking for, then I go to Google Maps and follow up by force-quitting Google Maps when I'm done.

Alternative: in countries where Apple maps suck, try Here maps: great UI and offline maps.

What aboyt maps.me? I use it and its excellent. https://maps.me/

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#52

Post by blabus » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

cygned wrote: post #50

When DuckDuckGo is set to a dark theme, the map is also in dark mode! To me, that is an incredible valuable feature. Edit: which is a fallback to Mapbox, no Apple Maps feature.

It seems they're falling back to Mapbox when a dark theme is used, presumably because MapKit JS doesn't support any theming or styling of maps.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#53

Post by jenhsun » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

Caution: DuckDuckGo's Apple Maps might kill your macOS's default map (show completely blank map) if your app has non-English language setting. If so, open your active monitor and search "geod", kill it and run map app again. It can return your apple map app back to normal state.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#54

Post by master-litty » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

cygned wrote: post #50

When DuckDuckGo is set to a dark theme, the map is also in dark mode! To me, that is an incredible valuable feature. Edit: which is a fallback to Mapbox, no Apple Maps feature.

We can send people to the moon but we can barely get dark mode right :)

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#55

Post by bhandziuk » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

smoser wrote: post #36

ncbrit wrote: post #15

Scroll wheel isn't zooming the map for me.

Hold down shift while scrolling to zoom, just like Maps.app.

this works...very slowly and the scroll direction is backwards from typical (scroll up to zoom in is what I'm used to)

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#56

Post by cygned » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

blabus wrote: post #52

cygned wrote: post #50

When DuckDuckGo is set to a dark theme, the map is also in dark mode! To me, that is an incredible valuable feature. Edit: which is a fallback to Mapbox, no Apple Maps feature.

It seems they're falling back to Mapbox when a dark theme is used, presumably because MapKit JS doesn't support any theming or styling of maps.

Good catch, I missed that. However, I guess that Apple will provide a dark mode for their map, too, at some point since they build dark mode into their OS(es?) anyway.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#57

Post by joemi » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

zbruhnke wrote: post #49

I really wish DDG would build a Google Apps competitor ... as long as gmail dominates email and business email the privacy argument is largely irrelevant because people will spend hours per day logged in and locked in to the Google ecosystem

I think the main motivation for a search company to go and build an email service (or an entire Google Apps competitor) would be the same reason Google did it... to mine user data. So to that end I don't think it really makes sense for DDG to do such a thing.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#58

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

cygned wrote: post #56

blabus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems they're falling back to Mapbox when a dark theme is used, presumably because MapKit JS doesn't support any theming or styling of maps.

Good catch, I missed that. However, I guess that Apple will provide a dark mode for their map, too, at some point since they build dark mode into their OS(es?) anyway.

I'm sure this will come once @media(prefers-color-scheme) becomes more prevalent.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#59

Post by mrlala » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

I like DDG android app. Nice that you can automatically set it to clear the data/history after 5/10/15 min of inactivity instead of having to remember to manually do it.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#60

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

jenhsun wrote: post #53

Caution: DuckDuckGo's Apple Maps might kill your macOS's default map (show completely blank map) if your app has non-English language setting. If so, open your active monitor and search "geod", kill it and run map app again. It can return your apple map app back to normal state.

How so?