6 ms·

I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general!

by grsmto 8y ago

lukeqsee 8y ago
I believe Apple at least augments their data with OSM data; however, I suspect the primary driver of this decision was price. Edit: request are succeeding for me now.
- mtmail 8y ago
  Apple employee spoke at a recent OSM conference. Yes, they use OSM data as well. In some countries more than others. Apple also has a fulltime staff working on OSM. https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues, https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/ https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    Apple can only use OSM data pre license change which is very old now, those links are to contributions Apple is making to OSM (similar to the big Microsoft contributions) which are probably there as a way of trying to prevent a Google monopoly, but not indications that Apple is using the data.
    - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
      That’s not true. Apple is using and contributing current, ODbL-licensed OSM data.
      - Brakenshire 8y ago
        How does that work? Do you mean using it behind the scenes? I thought ODbL prevented combinations unless the combined dataset could be released.
        Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
        It's not as broad as "combinations". In many circumstances that doesn't apply. The OSMF website has guidelines on what needs to be released and what doesn't.
mattlondon 8y ago
+1 I dont see why this was needed - it is a regression in terms of usability and performance (loading performance - cant comment on quality of the maps just yet, but I understand from others that the map data is woeful). Really disappointed. I used to recommend DDG to everyone, but this feels like a sell-out - without any justification for why they've done it, my mind just leaps to conclusions about marketing and trying to get "cool points".
- lukeqsee 8y ago
  I strongly suspect this was not a sell-out. I suspect it was more a move to save a good deal of money. Mapbox is very expensive at DDG-scale, and given how lean and efficient they like to run things, I can easily understand this choice. The fact that Apple also cares (loudly) about privacy makes it even easier. (I don't work for Apple and I run a competitor to Mapbox.)
  - sabas_ge 8y ago
    They could have rolled out their own (privacy-focused) map service. The data is open, the stack is open as well.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      And how much do the database server(s) cost, not to mention pushing map tiles out in terms of data costs. DDG isn't exactly flush with cash like google and apple are.
      - Aeolun 8y ago
        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.
        tracker1 8y ago
        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.
aphextron 8y ago
>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 course it’s still a commercial company. But I’d rather compromise and hitch my wagon to the folks that are outwardly explicitly drawing out their commitment to privacy, whose incentives I understand and trust.
- kuschku 8y ago
  In many places (e.g. many parts of Germany) Google and Apple maps are far inferior compared to OSM and Mapbox specifically. I tried finding an address recently on Google Maps, and just couldn’t find it, only to discover that that street was added 4 years ago, so ofc Google (with data from 2011) didn’t have it. OSM had it.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    Yes, OSM can give truly excellent results for certain areas. And truly awful results for others.
    - Brakenshire 8y ago
      The same for Apple Maps, except any improvements that go there fall into another closed silo.
    - xenadu02 8y ago
      This applies to all of the mapping providers. It takes a truly massive ground game to get really good map data for the entire world. Many players are working on this and I'm sure many will continue to work on it. A map that was garbage for your area three months ago might be great today.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  I’m also happy to see this move, but I tried to give Apple Maps another chance recently and it’s significantly behind Google. I didn’t even last a day. Especially if you’re trying to find things around your area, which is probably 99% of my usage. No surprise the blog post highlights how easy to use this integration is...in Cupertino.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Living in Germany, I've found that OSM embeds in websites are more common for me now while browsing, and to be blunt: they're ugly. The maps themselves are just difficult to visually parse, and unpleasant to look at compared to Google Maps and Apple Maps (which look comparably attractive at a glance). I dunno if that's solvable using a third party OSM service provider or not, but to me it seems like a good enough reason to switch.
- VvR-Ox 8y ago
  Exactly. Reaching a critical mass of users is also about UI/UX and it's a bummer they seem to ignore that.
- lucb1e 8y ago
  As someone used to osm, you can show me my home town on Google maps and I won't recognize it anymore. There is so little detail on the map, it might as well be blank. Osm is fine, it's you who has only trained yourself in using Google maps.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    No, OSM simply has bad UX. Your anecdote is completely irrelevant, I'm not sure why you bothered to bring it up, since you're talking about data, while I'm talking about design. If it was just me being too used to Google Maps, why don't I feel the same way about Apple Maps?
    - lucb1e 8y ago
      > No, OSM simply has bad UX. It's not very convincing if I just argued the opposite and you don't bother giving a single counter argument. What's more is that it makes me feel there is no point talking about it if logical arguments don't convince you for no apparent reason. > Your anecdote is completely irrelevant, I'm not sure why you bothered to bring it up, since you're talking about data, while I'm talking about design. I am talking about design. If you zoom in on Google maps, the data is mostly there (osm also has more data, sure, but that's not universally true on the planet (though on average, per square kilometer, osm easily beats Google, but that's a blog post I'm saving for another day)). Google just hides all the data except a few random roads and random shops or something. You literally have to zoom in until your screen covers the area of two buildings before it shows you what's in the building. Somehow I'm supposed to have an overview of a city from the sparsely populated view. OSM (though you can have any style you like, I'm going for what I see most frequently) just dumps all the data it had on your screen at almost any zoom level (below province sized zoom) and you can see details like building outlines and shop icons from quite far up. > If it was just me being too used to Google Maps, why don't I feel the same way about Apple Maps? Maybe Apple maps is very similar to Google maps? If that holds, I should not be able to use apple maps (just like I can't use Google maps very well), but last time I tried to open it in a browser it told me to buy an apple device first so I can't compare. I don't know the answer to your question.
VvR-Ox 8y ago
Probably because OSM didn't fulfill the promise it was created with? Implementation of OSM stuff is horrible and usability as well. I LOVE free software and my privacy is very important to me - so I switched everything to self-hosted and encrypted solutions. Except maps. I still use google maps for a lot of navigating just because other solutions are really inconvenient to work with.

I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general!

by grsmto 8y ago

I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general!

I believe Apple at least augments their data with OSM data; however, I suspect the primary driver of this decision was price. Edit: request are succeeding for me now.

mtmail 8y ago
Apple employee spoke at a recent OSM conference. Yes, they use OSM data as well. In some countries more than others. Apple also has a fulltime staff working on OSM. https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues, https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/ https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  Apple can only use OSM data pre license change which is very old now, those links are to contributions Apple is making to OSM (similar to the big Microsoft contributions) which are probably there as a way of trying to prevent a Google monopoly, but not indications that Apple is using the data.
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    That’s not true. Apple is using and contributing current, ODbL-licensed OSM data.
    - Brakenshire 8y ago
      How does that work? Do you mean using it behind the scenes? I thought ODbL prevented combinations unless the combined dataset could be released.
      - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
        It's not as broad as "combinations". In many circumstances that doesn't apply. The OSMF website has guidelines on what needs to be released and what doesn't.

mattlondon 8y ago

+1 I dont see why this was needed - it is a regression in terms of usability and performance (loading performance - cant comment on quality of the maps just yet, but I understand from others that the map data is woeful). Really disappointed. I used to recommend DDG to everyone, but this feels like a sell-out - without any justification for why they've done it, my mind just leaps to conclusions about marketing and trying to get "cool points".

lukeqsee 8y ago
I strongly suspect this was not a sell-out. I suspect it was more a move to save a good deal of money. Mapbox is very expensive at DDG-scale, and given how lean and efficient they like to run things, I can easily understand this choice. The fact that Apple also cares (loudly) about privacy makes it even easier. (I don't work for Apple and I run a competitor to Mapbox.)
- sabas_ge 8y ago
  They could have rolled out their own (privacy-focused) map service. The data is open, the stack is open as well.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    And how much do the database server(s) cost, not to mention pushing map tiles out in terms of data costs. DDG isn't exactly flush with cash like google and apple are.
    - Aeolun 8y ago
      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.
      - tracker1 8y ago
        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.

aphextron 8y ago

>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 course it’s still a commercial company. But I’d rather compromise and hitch my wagon to the folks that are outwardly explicitly drawing out their commitment to privacy, whose incentives I understand and trust.

kuschku 8y ago
In many places (e.g. many parts of Germany) Google and Apple maps are far inferior compared to OSM and Mapbox specifically. I tried finding an address recently on Google Maps, and just couldn’t find it, only to discover that that street was added 4 years ago, so ofc Google (with data from 2011) didn’t have it. OSM had it.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  Yes, OSM can give truly excellent results for certain areas. And truly awful results for others.
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    The same for Apple Maps, except any improvements that go there fall into another closed silo.
  - xenadu02 8y ago
    This applies to all of the mapping providers. It takes a truly massive ground game to get really good map data for the entire world. Many players are working on this and I'm sure many will continue to work on it. A map that was garbage for your area three months ago might be great today.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
I’m also happy to see this move, but I tried to give Apple Maps another chance recently and it’s significantly behind Google. I didn’t even last a day. Especially if you’re trying to find things around your area, which is probably 99% of my usage. No surprise the blog post highlights how easy to use this integration is...in Cupertino.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

TulliusCicero 8y ago

Living in Germany, I've found that OSM embeds in websites are more common for me now while browsing, and to be blunt: they're ugly. The maps themselves are just difficult to visually parse, and unpleasant to look at compared to Google Maps and Apple Maps (which look comparably attractive at a glance). I dunno if that's solvable using a third party OSM service provider or not, but to me it seems like a good enough reason to switch.

VvR-Ox 8y ago
Exactly. Reaching a critical mass of users is also about UI/UX and it's a bummer they seem to ignore that.
lucb1e 8y ago
As someone used to osm, you can show me my home town on Google maps and I won't recognize it anymore. There is so little detail on the map, it might as well be blank. Osm is fine, it's you who has only trained yourself in using Google maps.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  No, OSM simply has bad UX. Your anecdote is completely irrelevant, I'm not sure why you bothered to bring it up, since you're talking about data, while I'm talking about design. If it was just me being too used to Google Maps, why don't I feel the same way about Apple Maps?
  - lucb1e 8y ago
    > No, OSM simply has bad UX. It's not very convincing if I just argued the opposite and you don't bother giving a single counter argument. What's more is that it makes me feel there is no point talking about it if logical arguments don't convince you for no apparent reason. > Your anecdote is completely irrelevant, I'm not sure why you bothered to bring it up, since you're talking about data, while I'm talking about design. I am talking about design. If you zoom in on Google maps, the data is mostly there (osm also has more data, sure, but that's not universally true on the planet (though on average, per square kilometer, osm easily beats Google, but that's a blog post I'm saving for another day)). Google just hides all the data except a few random roads and random shops or something. You literally have to zoom in until your screen covers the area of two buildings before it shows you what's in the building. Somehow I'm supposed to have an overview of a city from the sparsely populated view. OSM (though you can have any style you like, I'm going for what I see most frequently) just dumps all the data it had on your screen at almost any zoom level (below province sized zoom) and you can see details like building outlines and shop icons from quite far up. > If it was just me being too used to Google Maps, why don't I feel the same way about Apple Maps? Maybe Apple maps is very similar to Google maps? If that holds, I should not be able to use apple maps (just like I can't use Google maps very well), but last time I tried to open it in a browser it told me to buy an apple device first so I can't compare. I don't know the answer to your question.

VvR-Ox 8y ago

Probably because OSM didn't fulfill the promise it was created with? Implementation of OSM stuff is horrible and usability as well. I LOVE free software and my privacy is very important to me - so I switched everything to self-hosted and encrypted solutions. Except maps. I still use google maps for a lot of navigating just because other solutions are really inconvenient to work with.