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Apple Maps Updated with Giant Black Lives Matter DC Mural

tech-historian 6y ago
If you're not using an Apple device and want to see the updated imagery, DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps: 1) Go to: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&... 2) Click "Open Map" 3) Click the "Satellite" icon in the lower left and zoom in. (Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness)
- gruez 6y ago
  >(Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness) works for me (tested in private window): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps&natb=v224-6rk&cp=atbsc&iaxm=maps https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&... still have to switch to satellite view manually, though.
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
One can look at this as an expression of support for BLM, and perhaps Apple actually does, but the reality is that the mural does exist on the road today and anyone using Apple Maps to get around benefits from the maps reflecting the current reality. Same goes for the street renaming. The only way I can see this being controversial is if the mural is removed or the street name is reverted and Apple Maps isn't updated to reflect those changes.
jtr1 6y ago
I see they used the photo from before the addition of "= Defund the Police"
cmdshiftf4 6y ago
"Black Lives Matter!" proclaim the megacorporations, some of whom recently had a significant judgement against them for colluding to suppress the salaries of their own staff in the US. "Black Lives Matter!", they splash across their homescreens with a beat of the chest, while their supply chains are intentionally filled to the brim with people, sometimes children, working in terrible, often physically dangerous, conditions for terrible pay under authoritarian rulers. These same megacorporations, apparently now fighting for equality, while sheltering hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in tax havens or offshore to prevent their profits from impacting the societies they operate in. They who pay their CEOs in the hundreds of millions per year while offering only cheap, temporary contracts to a vast amount of their workforce, often minorities. Pardon me, but I think my cynicism with this industry is peaking. Wake me up when the same entities do something meaningful beyond shallow, populist pandering.
- gowld 6y ago
  I think you missed a few words and pictures when you read the article. I'm sure you read the article and accidentally missed a word or picture.
fsckboy 6y ago
Seems to me to be a mistake for Apple beause they've now opened themselves up to the liability of editing any part of the world imagery to the benefit of various aggrieved parties including foreign governments because they can no longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work that way, it's automatic, etc etc"
- mcphage 6y ago
  > they can no longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work that way, it's automatic, etc etc" Have they ever used that defense for Apple Maps?
  - fsckboy 6y ago
    you are not parsing my sentence the way I constructed it. I could say "after your recent psychological testing, you can no longer use an insanity defence". You could say, "I've never used an insanity defence" and I could say "yes but you have had these [incidents] and you might have more, but now you can't use an insanity defence [which might have come in handy]" I was making the point that search engines and social media companies have come under a lot of pressure from different quarters to censor, ban, modify, etc. in the past, and I expect them to in the future, and "mapping" is a database search, and I would think that companies would like to preserve their "hands off" facade rather than throw it away on PR. I was making a good and reasonable point, but HN is neither good, nor reasonable, it is a hypersensitive groupthink mob which [anticipating those who leap to its defense] has an overweening prideful sense of itself.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      You aren't parsing my sentence in the way I constructed it. I could say "has there been any incident in the past in which Apple Maps has used that defense?".
      - fsckboy 6y ago
        my sentence was about the future, not the past. I could say "it is going to rain tomorrow" and you could ask me about the past and ... you would be moving off topic.
slenk 6y ago
Yet they can't keep Taiwan separate from China?
habanany 6y ago
I doubt google would do the same with a pro-life ad, if you have seen any reply to me with the link please

If you're not using an Apple device and want to see the updated imagery, DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps: 1) Go to: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&... 2) Click "Open Map" 3) Click the "Satellite" icon in the lower left and zoom in. (Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness)

gruez 6y ago
>(Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness) works for me (tested in private window): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps&natb=v224-6rk&cp=atbsc&iaxm=maps https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&... still have to switch to satellite view manually, though.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

One can look at this as an expression of support for BLM, and perhaps Apple actually does, but the reality is that the mural does exist on the road today and anyone using Apple Maps to get around benefits from the maps reflecting the current reality. Same goes for the street renaming. The only way I can see this being controversial is if the mural is removed or the street name is reverted and Apple Maps isn't updated to reflect those changes.

jtr1 6y ago

I see they used the photo from before the addition of "= Defund the Police"

cmdshiftf4 6y ago

"Black Lives Matter!" proclaim the megacorporations, some of whom recently had a significant judgement against them for colluding to suppress the salaries of their own staff in the US. "Black Lives Matter!", they splash across their homescreens with a beat of the chest, while their supply chains are intentionally filled to the brim with people, sometimes children, working in terrible, often physically dangerous, conditions for terrible pay under authoritarian rulers. These same megacorporations, apparently now fighting for equality, while sheltering hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in tax havens or offshore to prevent their profits from impacting the societies they operate in. They who pay their CEOs in the hundreds of millions per year while offering only cheap, temporary contracts to a vast amount of their workforce, often minorities. Pardon me, but I think my cynicism with this industry is peaking. Wake me up when the same entities do something meaningful beyond shallow, populist pandering.

gowld 6y ago
I think you missed a few words and pictures when you read the article. I'm sure you read the article and accidentally missed a word or picture.

fsckboy 6y ago

Seems to me to be a mistake for Apple beause they've now opened themselves up to the liability of editing any part of the world imagery to the benefit of various aggrieved parties including foreign governments because they can no longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work that way, it's automatic, etc etc"

mcphage 6y ago
> they can no longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work that way, it's automatic, etc etc" Have they ever used that defense for Apple Maps?
- fsckboy 6y ago
  you are not parsing my sentence the way I constructed it. I could say "after your recent psychological testing, you can no longer use an insanity defence". You could say, "I've never used an insanity defence" and I could say "yes but you have had these [incidents] and you might have more, but now you can't use an insanity defence [which might have come in handy]" I was making the point that search engines and social media companies have come under a lot of pressure from different quarters to censor, ban, modify, etc. in the past, and I expect them to in the future, and "mapping" is a database search, and I would think that companies would like to preserve their "hands off" facade rather than throw it away on PR. I was making a good and reasonable point, but HN is neither good, nor reasonable, it is a hypersensitive groupthink mob which [anticipating those who leap to its defense] has an overweening prideful sense of itself.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    You aren't parsing my sentence in the way I constructed it. I could say "has there been any incident in the past in which Apple Maps has used that defense?".
    - fsckboy 6y ago
      my sentence was about the future, not the past. I could say "it is going to rain tomorrow" and you could ask me about the past and ... you would be moving off topic.

slenk 6y ago

Yet they can't keep Taiwan separate from China?

habanany 6y ago

I doubt google would do the same with a pro-life ad, if you have seen any reply to me with the link please