DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-apple-mapkit-js/

by shritesh • 8 years ago

961 466 8 years ago

woofcat• 8 years ago

She's not loading any tiles for me....

soperj• 8 years ago

Not in the US - so realize that not everyone experiences this - but I've never had a mapping software be so terrible as Apple maps, led me completely out of the way and over a toll bridge that I didn't need to go over. Trip was over an hour longer than it needed to be. I'll definitely still be using !maps to get google maps on duckduckgo.

mlok• 8 years ago

!gm is shorter for Google Maps on duckduckgo (in case you didn't know about this shortcut)

matwood• 8 years ago

Is this recent? I'm in the US, and have found that Apple Maps have improved greatly since it was released. The directions and estimates are equal or better than Google Maps for my area now.

mnem• 8 years ago

For Scotland, the maps are pretty good (much better than Google Maps here). I was quite surprised.

baxtr• 8 years ago

I live in Europe and only use Apple Maps. It is good enough. Sometimes POI are missing, that’s when I use Google Maps (Browser only)

beezischillin• 8 years ago

It's such an inconsistent experience for me, in my home region, Transylvania, Google Maps is vastly superior even tho I'd prefer Apple. But I found that -- weirdly enough -- at least while vacationing in the UK, Google seems to show a lot less information on the map on the same zoom level, to a point where I need to zoom in to a level where I feel I can't see a large enough area at once. An example of this is the Brighton Marina, trying to look up the POIs there is frustrating on Google Maps while at the same time it's usable on Apple's offering.

reaperducer• 8 years ago

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.

devereaux2• 8 years ago

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

clairity• 8 years ago

where do you think apple maps is better than google?

google maps is the only google service i still use on a regular basis because it's clearly better than apple maps for me (california mostly). apple maps is ok for simple use cases like finding a known business, but an ambiguous search on google maps is almost always better, as is their routing.

i'd love to find a better mapping service for these more complicated use cases so i can avoid google altogether.

sveme2• 8 years ago

What‘s your country? Using Apple Maps all the time in Germany and found it to be actually better than Google Maps (though with a tendency to reroute around traffic more often than Google Maps used to do).

wil421• 8 years ago

Is Apple Maps good with public transit? I used Google maps in and around Stuttgart and Munich. It worked extremely well. Google Maps was extremely good with public transport in NYC but Apple Maps was not.

Where I live but the Southern US Apple Maps is almost as good as Google Maps. Public Transport isn’t quite as good with Apple maps in my city.

rsynnott• 8 years ago

It's pretty regional. It's less confused about Dublin's public transport system these days than Google is, say, so I've started to use it more.

graeme• 8 years ago

One thing is apple maps hasn't added bike maps for some reason. This is a seriously hindrance in Europe I expect. I'm in Montreal and this keeps me from using apple maps, as I like to assess walking/biking/transit/uber to decide how to get somewhere

Konryan• 8 years ago

This map doesn't work for me. Completely blank.

twoheadedboy2• 8 years ago

Same. Does image search work for you at all?

turdnagel• 8 years ago

The calls to MapKit seem to be going through a proxy on DDG's servers, which are currently (1/15/19 18:00 UTC) 403ing.

bsstoner• 8 years ago

Sorry about that, we had a brief issue with our proxy, it should be working properly now.

andrethegiant• 8 years ago

I could see a future where DDG gets acquired by Apple.

mtmail3• 8 years ago

Separate discussion from last week, most argue against it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18816748

devereaux2• 8 years ago

I'd argue for it. Apple is missing a search engine, has deep-enough pockets and resources to build its own engine if DDG API contracts were stopped, and is favored by people who value their privacy.

mattlondon3• 8 years ago

+1 - acquisition by a FAANG would be a instant turn-off for someone like me. I value its independence.

chooseaname• 8 years ago

I'd rather see an investment. Maybe by providing a really good deal on maps[0]. Seems like this is a win-win for both. Apple wants to focus more on services and DDG gets a bit[1] of validation by being able to provide Apple maps.

[0] Obviously I have no idea if this is the case.

[1] As if they needed any.

tootahe45• 8 years ago

I'm a privacy nut but their search engine is unusable, i feel like for every 3rd search i need to switch back to Google to get proper results, Bing is a lot better for programming/computer answers.

aembleton2• 8 years ago

Can you give an example of a search that works in Google, but not in DDG? It must be a couple of months since I last searched with Google.

grsmto• 8 years ago

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

lukeqsee8• 8 years 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.

mtmail3• 8 years 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/

mattlondon3• 8 years ago

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".

lukeqsee8• 8 years 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.)

Freak_NL2• 8 years ago

Definitely a severe regression in the Netherlands. Apple Maps doesn't even show houses, and has only a fraction of the POI's OpenStreetMap has. It doesn't have directions for bicycles either — and it leaves out a bunch of dedicated cycleways in my area.

And the colours! All features seem to bleed into their low-contrast pastel neighbours.

This doesn't feel like a proper match for DuckDuckGo at all.

aiisjustanif• 8 years ago

One of my reasons for not use DDG was maps, another big one is instant airline data on search query results (which isn't fair bc Google owns ITA). This upgrade to maps is awesome, IMO Mapbox felt like I was in the stone ages for map functionality and UI.

aphextron2• 8 years 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• 8 years 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.

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 8 years 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.

sngz• 8 years ago

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.

latexr7• 8 years ago

Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

Not in Portugal, or most places in Europe where I’ve tried it. They are so far behind it’s not even funny.

t0astbread6• 8 years ago

You're forgetting one detail that I think should be emphasized here: OSM is about free knowledge (as in freedom). You can use, modify and share OSM data however you want. Apple on the other hand is hoarding its information. You can only access it through their products in the ways they intended. They control everything (as always).

I do believe it when Apple says they're respecting their users' privacy, just like I believe it when DDG says that. But I am disappointed when I see how these companies neglect freedom and how so few of their users care about it.

nvr219• 8 years ago

Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

Reporting from Washington, DC: nope.

arendtio2• 8 years ago

Well, the map quality depends on the region. So I could easily argue that OSM has much better quality than Google Maps, looking at Hamburg, Germany for example.

I know that the quality is not everywhere as good as there, but the quality varies for the other Map products too. So if it 'sucks' or the other thing 'sucks' greatly depends on where you currently are.

Mindwipe• 8 years ago

Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

In California maybe.

Everywhere else? Not even close.

TulliusCicero2• 8 years 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-Ox2• 8 years ago

Exactly. Reaching a critical mass of users is also about UI/UX and it's a bummer they seem to ignore that.

lucb1e2• 8 years 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.

detaro2• 8 years ago

I dunno if that's solvable using a third party OSM service provider or not,

Approximately everyone is using a third-party OSM service, since the OSM project does not provide map tiles for general use.

I also strongly disagree on your other criticism of the most common style, but that's a matter of taste. To me, they look more like a proper city map is supposed to look, and provide more detail that's useful for me to orient myself. If I were typically doing long car drives, I might prefer Google, but I don't.

VvR-Ox2• 8 years 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.

mtmail3• 8 years ago

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.

gowld• 8 years ago

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

NicoJuicy• 8 years ago

Or Apple's marketing team lead to a donation to DDG to make it possible

willio58• 8 years ago

The best kind of marketing is marketing based on universally known truth.

johnsea• 8 years ago

Google _is_ a privacy threat. Completely unrelated to DDG, marketing or believe.

One Google with thousand tentacles...

morganvachon4• 8 years ago

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.

kerng• 8 years ago

Is Google not a privacy threat?

awkward• 8 years ago

I think an interesting question is how much of it is because of Apple starting to lean on privacy as a differentiator, rather than DuckDuckGo continuing to do so.

Krasnol3• 8 years ago

Is it just me or does the map-link go to yelp.com? Why are we even talking about Apple here when it's yelp getting the clicks?

This is terrible...

amdelamar• 8 years ago

Apple Maps on iOS/macOS shows Yelp photos and reviews of places.

maxerickson2• 8 years ago

At some point their place search was powered by Yelp.

The flip side with Mapbox is that they probably weren't collecting any less data either.

spectre256• 8 years ago

Whether or not Mapbox collects more data is an interesting question. My guess would be they do, by a lot.

If you look at their website, Mapbox is all about "live" location data, insights, etc. The days of them just being a provider of nice services built around (mostly) open data are probably over. They have a huge userbase and can leverage all that data to do powerful things.

rmc2• 8 years ago

CEO of Mapbox said at State of the Map US 2018 that they are continuously collecting lots of location data (which they use to improve the map). They do not believe this amounts to the collection of personal data.

sjg007• 8 years ago

Apple needs it's own search engine. This is step 1.

aurea• 8 years ago

What if they just bought DDG?

loxs• 8 years ago

Wow, I hope they buy DDG

Yuval_Halevi• 8 years ago

Good point. I like DuckDuckGo, but lately, their decisions make me wonder what's their direction.

The only way they promote themselves is only by comparing DuckDuckGo to Google

metz999• 8 years ago

As a user, the deciding point is quality of google maps versus the reality of the claim of privacy with apple maps. I have a hard time believing that current users of duckduckgo completely escaped google's data collection over the decades and by choosing to use apple maps have dramatically reduced their privacy exposure with a measurable impact on their lives.

niutech• 8 years ago

According to Mapbox Privacy Policy (https://www.mapbox.com/privacy/), they collect a lot of data, including: (a) IP address, (b) device and browser information, (c) operating system, (d) the content of the request, (e) the date and time of the request, and (f) limited location and usage data.

lukeqsee8• 8 years ago

If any of you are looking for a company (that is not Apple) that provides map tiles while respecting your customer's privacy, my company (link in profile) does not keep logs beyond debugging necessity and has plans to further improve our privacy profile. We also can make provision for proxy servers in the interest of privacy, if that is helpful for your use case.

(We currently use Analytics on our homepage, but have plans to replace that on our next iteration.)

spurgu2• 8 years ago

Replace it with what if I may ask?

lukeqsee8• 8 years ago

Hey spurgu, that's yet to be decided. :)

We're investigating some of the self-hosted options or our own log-based metrics (think ElasticSearch + Kibana). We're trying to avoid third-parties, if at all possible.

ncbrit• 8 years ago

Scroll wheel isn't zooming the map for me.

eyesee• 8 years ago

At least in Safari, pinch-to-zoom does work.

smoser2• 8 years ago

But it does support other/better trackpad gestures like pinch to zoom and twist to rotate the map.

mattlondon3• 8 years ago

Not for me it doesn't - pinch zooms the entire page, not the map. Mouse wheel does nothing. Rotate does nothing.

Total usability fail here. Very disappointed in DDG :(

braum• 8 years ago

Apple map sucks on non-MacOS... no idea why DDG chose them unless its prep for acquisition. you can use CTRL+MouseWheel to zoom in/out.

convivialdingo• 8 years ago

Zoom doesn't work on Sierra w/ Safari for me in any way - only tapping the +/- buttons works.

aibara• 8 years ago

Yep, very annoying, especially for people who use trackpoints.

smoser2• 8 years ago

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

burkaman• 8 years ago

Do you know how to move the map? Click and drag doesn't do anything.

Rebelgecko• 8 years ago

That doesn't do anything on my end (using Firefox on a Mac). And for me Maps.app doesn't require any modifier keys to zoom with the scroll wheel

bhandziuk• 8 years ago

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

josteink2• 8 years ago

just like Maps.app.

What is a maps.app?

drusepth• 8 years ago

The map no longer loads for me at all (Chrome on Linux). Maybe they're getting overloaded?

virusduck• 8 years ago

One thing I notice is that there is no way to restrict search to the map area, or to refine by "Search this Area."

twoheadedboy2• 8 years ago

Somewhat related but DuckDuckGo Image and Map search results have been broken for months for me. I just get blank, broken images. Anyone else have this problem?

Kind of defeats the purpose if I have to use google for half of my searches.

dan-robertson• 8 years ago

Some kind of extension blocking the images/js from loading?

bwblabs• 8 years ago

Or faking/randomizing your UA? Some sites (e.g. YT) serves other image formats based on the UA string.

oth001• 8 years ago

Https://Startpage.com

zbruhnke• 8 years ago

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

joemi• 8 years ago

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.

nerfhammer• 8 years ago

I think they did it because existing alternatives were terrible

josteink2• 8 years ago

I don’t use Gmail. FastMail works nicely for me, with no google-login required.

Don’t see why DDG (a search engine) should run an email-service, nor vica-verse really.

spurgu2• 8 years ago

If you want to control all the world's data...

ethagnawl• 8 years ago

I could see Proton* making this play.

jonas21• 8 years ago

How would that work? Surely they'd need to index your documents and emails so you could search over them. And I think many DDG users would find that pretty unappealing.

jlarocco• 8 years ago

There's no need for that, and no reason a search engine company should provide those things.

There are already alternatives for every Google product, most of them objectively better.

The only thing keeping you locked into Google is you.

groovybits• 8 years ago

I really wish DDG would build a Google Apps competitor

That sounds like it violates the nature in which DDG wishes to brand itself. It seems DDG does not want to be the next centralized data platform (this kills their brand of privacy). The one product they already provide - search - is often times not better than Google results. They rather let you choose which search provider you want to use with their bangs system.

as long as gmail dominates email and business email the privacy argument is largely irrelevant

I know Gsuite exists, but I have personally seen more instances of Office 365 than Gsuite for business in the wild. Not that Microsoft is any more privacy-friendly... just saying that I don't believe Google dominates business email.

JohnFen4• 8 years ago

My workplace uses Google's stuff, unfortunately. However that's only for work stuff. I don't use any Google services for my own purposes.

If DDG implemented their own set of apps, I wouldn't object -- but it wouldn't be anything that I'd actually use, either.

thekyle2• 8 years ago

For a while, DDG offered a free Jabber provider which lots of people hoped would do to XMPP what Gmail did to Email but they shut it down.

cygned3• 8 years ago

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.

blabus• 8 years ago

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.

cygned3• 8 years ago

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.

master-litty• 8 years ago

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

njarboe• 8 years ago

We can't currently send people to the moon, unfortunately. SpaceX is working on creating that capability in the next decade or so though and with there track record it might even happen.

MrBra4• 8 years ago

I think "Darker Reader" extension got it right finally...

You'll get dark mode everywhere, automatically, with good looking dark colors.

I think it does that by leveraging color theory and CSS filters.

enlyth• 8 years ago

If anyone wants this for Google Maps, try the Dark Reader extension for Chrome.

Here is how it looks on my machine: https://i.imgur.com/rpCiJSA.jpg

cygned3• 8 years ago

Not bad, not bad. The colored areas, especially that green would annoy me, though.

joeblau• 8 years ago

That's interesting because Apple Maps supports dark mode on the Mac[1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/9km62p/apple_maps_tran...

dhritzkiv• 8 years ago

It's also supported in MapKitJS as of the latest version (5.13.0)[1]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/mapkit_js...

MrBra4• 8 years ago

Check out "Darker Reader" extension... now you'll get that everywhere, automatically, with good looking dark colors.

I think it achieves that by leveraging color theory and CSS filters.

Once you try it you cannot go back :)

I am not involved in development nor devs are friends of mine, I just think it didn't get all the exposure it deserves.

PS if you're on chrome, after installing Darker Reader the infamous chrome white flash problem will mess with your eyes... Following thread has a partial solution to that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18714902

hutattedonmyarm• 8 years ago

as much as I love that extension, I prefer "native" dark modes (as in, provided directly by the website)

jenhsun• 8 years ago

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.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

How so?

betolink2• 8 years ago

I'm looking forward to the day that privacy and convenience are mainstream again(if there were ever). This feature is a right step on that direction.

danso• 8 years ago

When was convenience not mainstream, except in the earlier days of the Internet before centralized logins (e.g. Google, Facebook), which are associated with a tradeoff in privacy?

betolink2• 8 years ago

Yeah, you're right. What I meant is that in our day they are mutually exclusive, either you have privacy or you have convenience. I like duckduckgo and I use it as my default search engine but we can agree that it lacks many of the convenient features Google maps has. So I'm looking forward to the day that privacy and convenience are the norm.

jethro_tell4• 8 years ago

They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression.

  I'm looking forward to the day when people know what they are talking about.

lukeqsee8• 8 years ago

They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression.

I'm not sure this is a fair comparison. Open source is not the same as privacy-friendly.

Apple makes privacy a core-tenet of their product. I do not see the same stance from Mapbox.

babyslothzoo• 8 years ago

Why hasn't Apple bought DuckDuckGo?

I also think the name DuckDuckGo is too long and too cumbersome, they should consider rebranding to something simpler. Branding matters.

lindgrenj6• 8 years ago

You can use duck.com and it'll redirect :)

lucasmullens• 8 years ago

They own duck.com now, figure it won't be long until they're rebranded as "Duck"

yammajr• 8 years ago

In December they acquired the name duck.com, maybe they'll do something with that. Right now it just redirects to duckduckgo.com

tabtab• 8 years ago

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

When you use Apple Maps to go anywhere, you do have to duck :-)

rgrieselhuber• 8 years ago

StartPage and Searx are two interesting alternatives to DDG.

godelski4• 8 years ago

I have to say I'm pretty upset about this.

Not over privacy stuff (I don't trust Apple that much either), but because Apple maps just sucks. Unless things changed within the last 4 months, Apple Maps couldn't accurately navigate me from Custer State Park to Mt. Rushmore (which really isn't far).

elicash• 8 years ago

Have you previously used OpenStreetMap? I'd be interested in hearing from those who have. I can say as a DDG user that presentation-wise I disliked what DDG was using before -- but from a direction-accuracy perspective I simply have no idea and would love to hear from others.

godelski4• 8 years ago

I'll be fair in that I've never used it for navigation. But I have used it for looking up locations of places, and it never seemed bad. But I don't do that very often.

scrooched_moose• 8 years ago

It's either great or useless, 100% dependent on your location.

Maybe 40% of my city is missing (top-20 in the US) including absolutely everything in my neighborhood other than a couple parks and churches. It gets my address to the correct block (between X and Y Aves) but that's it. Some small towns around me barely exist, others are absolutely complete.

You'll probably do ok in SF/NYC/LA/Chicago etc, but it gets really spotty beyond that.

chrisxcross• 8 years ago

OSM is really awesome in (western) Europe. I use it all the time. All new bike trails are in it. Even the trees in down town are in it. It is even great for car navigation. I used the map data to navigate in tiny beach villages in Spain, for a round trip in Iceland and on several other occasions in western Europe. However, i only relied on the data and let my Garmin device create the routes.

jug• 8 years ago

I think OSM is a more natural, and even higher quality, match for DDG. I'm pretty surprised by this. Sure, Apple is pretty privacy concious too. At least they want their users to have that image of them. But OSM is on a whole different level due to their open nature rather than a black box with an API in front.

OSM is becoming pretty impressive too. Even smaller towns here in Sweden are decently mapped. A huge difference compared to just five years ago¹, far greater difference than since Apple Maps was launched as far as I can tell. Apple Maps launched in a better state, yes, but not in a good state, and I think it's been moving slowly since then. OSM launched in a minimal state but are moving forward like a maglev train.

¹ Also visualized here: https://labs.mapbox.com/ten-years-openstreetmap/

stouset• 8 years ago

Competition is good.

I am happily using Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and Apple Maps instead of their Google equivalents—even though I was perfectly happy with them for the most part—just to do what little I can to ensure continued competition in these spaces.

Yeah, Apple Maps isn’t as good as Google Maps in many regards. But it’s been improving, and it’s honestly not that much worse for the overwhelming majority of my use cases, to the point where I don’t even notice except a handful of times per year. And I can always fall back to the Google product if I absolutely have to.

godelski4• 8 years ago

I have found that I unfortunately have to frequently fall back to Google Maps. Which I don't actually like. Honestly it is more a disappointment in Apple. I would expect them to be able to get directions right for a well traveled path. Those two parks have a lot of visitors each year and frequently people will visit both in the same day. But Apple Maps wanted me to go a completely different way and I couldn't figure out how it was connecting.

Maybe things changed, but that wasn't that long ago. And we all know that once a product falls (and pretty hard), it is harder to recover.

chewz• 8 years ago

Apple Maps sucks but DDG is also terrible (in languages other then En) and both make dubious claims about protecting customer privacy. So this is match made in heaven.

I have given up on Apple Maps long time ago and I have given up on DDG after many failed attempts.

I am using Qwant https://lite.qwant.com/ which is surprisingly good for general search terms and embarrassing for specialized search terms (like programming and such).

r00fus• 8 years ago

Interesting that Qwant says "the only search engine that respects your privacy" without giving any backing to that claim. I had to nav out of the "lite" URL, then navigate to "Philosophy" to see why their claim had any merit.

According to Wikipedia, they still pipe your searches through Bing except for FR/DE (though anonymized), and it's not who the backend search engine is there.

knarf180• 8 years ago

The games link in the footer of Qwant is a bit odd. Doesn't really belong with the other links.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

Interestingly, it seems like the Maps data that Apple is providing here is inconsistent. In southern California, through the native apps I'm getting high-quality maps, while DuckDuckGo is still showing me the older low-quality ones.

fady2• 8 years ago

A+ DDG! I have been using DDG (duck duck go) since Gabriel created it in 2008. It’s been my default search on all my devices. When I need to route searches through Google, I do, as Google is still king at knowing and giving you the exact results you want, whereas DDG, gives you great results, with a different algorithm on the type results plus the added security of what DDG is about. They don’t track you. They don’t save your searches. I don’t use apple maps as i use android, but I like that DDG continues to go against the grain and choose privacy over comfort.

Lastly, I know the bulk of my searches go through DDG so I don’t have to think about what I searched, on what devices, was it on a public net, was VPN enabled?? etc etc.. What are you thoughts? Do you use DDG?

JohnFen4• 8 years ago

Google is still king at knowing and giving you the exact results you want

Not for me, it's not. The quality of Google search results for me has been falling for years now. These days, DDG and Google are about equally good on that score.

I suspect that it's because Google tries to tailor my search results to what it thinks I'm looking for rather than just giving me the results I actually asked for, and it's really, really terrible at it.

bhhaskin2• 8 years ago

Totally. I find that most of my Google searches are not relevant. It started to go down hill once they started pushing ML on search. Google is a marketing platform and no longer a search engine.

see-dante• 8 years ago

Out of curiosity, why would Apple's privacy statement on searches be any different than Google's?

fady2• 8 years ago

I do not know specifically as I have not read Apple Maps policy but to choose Apple Maps over Google Maps says a lot. I use google maps personally. Apple maps is getting better, but it's not google maps. So one can assume, the choice to choose apple over google means, IMHO, is that with Apple Maps they do not track as much as google would/does. Apple stance on privacy, publicly, has been pretty good. Tracking is everywhere and DDG still is sticking to their privacy first method.

Lastly, I love that I can dump random searches from my weird brain into DDG without the feeling that I'm giving some random machine, data that at some point can tell someone what I may want or do or have searched. Everyone knows what you're doing on the toilet, everybody poops, but we still close the door for privacy.

thinkindie• 8 years ago

"pizza in berlin" lacks several options, and I just checked my neighbourhood. This is why I'm still using google maps on my iphone, their search results are far better and more accurate

wojcikstefan• 8 years ago

The results themselves are powered by Yelp (and have been before the map switch). The only difference is that now their location is displayed on Apple Maps, not Mapbox.

Krasnol3• 8 years ago

"pizza in frankfurt am main" is terrible.

Scrolling with shift (!?) doesn't work at all in my FF.

I can't change the search term on the map page...

The satellite view doesn't have street names (????!)

Edit: the link I click is a yelp.com link. Why are we even talking about Apples privacy here and not yelps?

What a horrible step back...

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

The satellite view doesn't have street name

Are you sure you're not in hybrid view?

yeukhon• 8 years ago

What's DDG's business model?

amanzi2• 8 years ago

To get acquired by a bigger company.

aboutruby• 8 years ago

Apple is probably going to buy DuckDuckGo this year

detaro2• 8 years ago

Apple can buy the same search index access DDG has (and probably would have to re-negotiate DDGs existing contracts when taking them over) if it wants to get into search. Although DDG has some additions on top of that, if it'd be cheap enough those could be a reasonable deal for Apple.

I'm not sure Apple wants to get into the mess that offering a major search engine is.

Google is paying them quite well for the opportunity to be the search engine on Apple devices.

mrmondo• 8 years ago

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 bit annoying when it does happen. My guessing is that because Google farms a tremendous amount of public and private data from Android devices and Google searches / services they are able to use their privately held wealth of peoples information to improve street numbering especially when new roads are added or intersections have been changed - that combined with Google maps being 14 years old and Apple maps only being 7. Still, a sensible move for a privacy focused system I believe.

jchw3• 8 years ago

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.

Twisell• 8 years ago

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.

somebodynew• 8 years ago

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.

xoa2• 8 years ago

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.

tracker13• 8 years ago

I've had the same issue with locations on google maps a few times and iirc it's taken a bit longer than that.

What I really hate are mall locations. I wish pin markers put the actual stores in the right portion of the building(s) themselves... hate parking on the wrong side of the complex to find out that I parked on the wrong side. Increase that to when the temperatures are more extreme (under 40F in the north or over 100F in the southwest).

amanzi2• 8 years ago

I guess DDG are angling for Apple to purchase them. Personally I would have preferred for them to stick with OSM. Also, after a quick test, the Apple maps load slowly and driving directions are offloaded to another provider (Bing, Here, Google. or OSM)

jchw3• 8 years ago

Apple Maps has seen impressive improvements in the past couple years. With Mapbox/OSM in the mix as well, I look forward to seeing where the competition in the maps space leads us.

Mapkit JS took me by surprise when it came out. But so far, it seems to have been a solid decision, especially at a time when many were looking for new solutions after Google Maps changes finally rolled out. And for the most part it looks pretty good.

(Disclosure: I work for Google but not on Maps, opinions mine and not my employer, etc etc. I wish I didn't have to write this so often.)

aembleton2• 8 years ago

To zoom in using my mouse wheel, I have to hold down shift, and then it zooms in the opposite direction to how it works in Google Maps (Firefox 64.0 on Ubuntu).

The behaviour works fine for the MapBox maps.

wjoe2• 8 years ago

Same experience with the zooming. Thanks for the tip on holding shift, but it's realllly slow too.

I also can't drag the map around or click on any items on the map. Really inferior experience so far.

Did you find a way to switch back to the Mapbox maps?

latexr7• 8 years ago

So DDG will now use Apple’s data to find places? Please don’t. It should be the other way around.

Not even a month ago I made a search for a famous place in Lisbon (you know, big metropolitan area, capital of Portugal, 11th-most populous urban area in the European Union) and Apple Maps didn’t even know it existed. Made the search in DDG and it found it, from where I had to copy the address and manually search for it in Maps.

Or I could’ve used Google Maps in one try, but I genuinely want DDG and Apple Maps to succeed so I keep trying. But please do use the best data of both, don’t replace one with the other.

adtac• 8 years ago

best data of both

Isn't that basically just Google Maps? I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps'.

What does Apple Maps do better? Genuinely curious.

uniformlyrandom• 8 years ago

It is, but without the desire to monetize your searches.

latexr7• 8 years ago

Yes, Google Maps is superior in my region, but as I mentioned, I’d rather support Apple and DDG. I do so for their stances on privacy, but also because usability-wise I do prefer Apple Maps.

I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps'

They must be different datasets; I doubt Google would want to give Apple any data, or data Apple would take it. I will mention that once I have found one place in Apple Maps that was not in Google Maps. It was a small hostel in Europe.

sorahn• 8 years ago

Turn by turn notifications for walking directions. Surprisingly nice in combination with the watch. It just thumps my wrist when I'm supposed to turn.

That being said, I still search for places in google maps, and just plug the address into apple maps.

matt4077• 8 years ago

Is there a reason for keeping the specific place secret?

imandride• 8 years ago

I can't imagine many people use the maps features in DDG. Switching over to Apple maps isn't going to help, considering that everyone I know in New England stops using Apple maps after about the fifth attempt. Absolutely everyone has an iPhone yet I have no idea how Apple Maps looks like at this point.

Ajax253• 8 years ago

Idiots

Paraesthetic• 8 years ago

Well looks like I wont be using DDG for directions then, their directions are going to be trash.

t0astbread6• 8 years ago

It's a shame to see that DuckDuckGo and many other such companies (yes, also Apple) jump on every "privacy" marketing opportunity they get but largely ignore related user rights such as freedom of information and free software.

Actions like this, the fact that DDGs core components are still proprietary and the freezing of DuckDuckHack just kinda make me think DDG sometimes cares more about the PR than its users.

Don't get me wrong I do think DDG does a good job at providing a good search engine service that respects its users' privacy. It just bothers me that (almost) no one around here seems to care about freedom.

It's a similar thing with Apple, with the exception that Apple actively goes against even the most basic freedoms by forbidding sideloading (if that's still happening), forbidding the GPL on the App Store and being in control of the whole stack - from hardware to software - on almost every platform they have, amongst others.

I'm not saying you need to love freedom but it's a good thing to have, so why not propagate it alongside with privacy? And if you don't do it for yourself, do it for those who care about their freedom.

briandear5• 8 years ago

How is free software a right? I'm not dismissing the value of free software, but considering it a right? If free software is a right, that diminishes the what "right" actually means. Freedom of speech is a right. The ability to defend oneself is a right. Privacy is a right. But free software? How does the map provider of DDG have any effect on a person's ability to use, create, or distribute free software?

t0astbread6• 8 years ago

I believe it is a user's right to know and verify what a specific piece of software does to his data and machine and adjust that behaviour if needed. For that, they need access to the source code.

I believe it is a user's right to share the software and configuration they use to help out their neighbour and for that they need to be able to share copies of the software.

Lastly, I obviously believe it is a user's right to run the software wherever they want.

So yeah, free software is a right in my opinion, like freedom of information and free speech. Unfortunately, not many companies care about it (yet).

You're also right in the point that DDG not setting OSM as the default map provider won't actually hurt OSM, really. But it does piss me off a bit when a company always talks about how "privacy friendly" and "open source" they are yet they completely dismiss the (related) freedom aspect. Because "privacy" and "open source" are just the buzzwords the media is talking about.

Does DDG not know about freedom? Does DDG not care about freedom? Why? I know they probably have a good reason for that and good intent in what they're doing but without having an answer to these questions, it just looks like they're grabbing the low hanging fruit sometimes.

cageface5• 8 years ago

I struggle with this too. I applaud Apple's emphasis on privacy but they've probably done more than any single company to advance the spread of proprietary software. If they had it their way then their app store would be the single gatekeeper for all non-trivial consumer apps. I have plenty of issues with Google but I can still sideload an APK on my phone if I want and I see Google doing a lot more to help the web compete with native apps than Apple does. I don't want to live in a world where a arbitrary app store rejection means my app effectively doesn't exist.

cageface5• 8 years ago

I’m a bit concerned about how much data Google has on me and I do think Apple is genuinely more concerned about user privacy. But what’s the difference in practical terms really?

Google uses my data to target ads at me but doesn’t actually give any of my data to its ad-buying customers. Apple doesn’t do this but is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena.

Since this is really the scenario we should be most concerned about and since all tech companies are required to comply with the law it seems to me that the only way to have any meaningful online privacy is to not use cloud services from any vendor.

zaksoup• 8 years ago

Seems to me like one of the key differences is in how much data is actually collected. DDG claims in their blog post that they send no PII to apple, they're just using apple to provide a map view and search data.

I'm not even sure this level of anonymized usage is possible with google's APIs.

Edit: I just had the experience of trying to use biking directions in google maps the other day. In order to enable actual turn-by-turn directions I had to turn on something called "Web and App activity" which, as best as I can tell, is an unbelievably invasive set of technologies designed to track you across websites, real locations, and non-google owned apps using google APIs.

There's a real and meaningful difference in the amount and depth of the data collected by google vs. its competitors. I think a huge motivating factor for why google collects that data is their ad-driven revenue model.

To tie it back to your original question: Sure we could all just not use cloud services but in the mean time there are clear differences in how vulnerable you are to privacy violations by nation-states through legal means based on how much data various cloud services are actively trying to collect on you.

cageface5• 8 years ago

Yeah I agree this is very shady. Until recently you couldn't use Google Assistant at all without enabling that, which means that every time you launch an app it's logged on their servers. They've fixed this recently but they still require you to turn it on for a lot of features in Android.

SubMachineGhost• 8 years ago

Google uses my data to target ads at me but doesn’t actually give any of my data to its ad-buying customers. Apple doesn’t do this but is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena.

I agree with you, but Google is way more aggressive in its data collection behavior than apple and i am getting sick of that.

I have been using Google maps this past month and i noticed some dark patterns :

- after getting directions from `your current location` when you deactivate your location services and switch apps, google maps will delete the directions and resets to the page that asks you to chose a `from` location, now you have to give google your current location to get those directions back.

- you cannot get your `current location` without internet enabled, even when you have `location services` enabled.

giancarlostoro• 8 years ago

I'm seriously considering going iPhone for the first time, I've been an Android user since I could get my hands on an Android phone on Sprint for the first time (2009? I think...) and lived through the crappiness of early Android. I prefer Android cause I can root it, but I never do, feel like it will break something I want if I use a "ROM" (why they're not called DISTROS is beyond me) but also last time I tried to install a ROM I screwed up my phone so bad I had to factory reset the hard way through a tutorial, I basically bricked it.

With iOS I only get iOS or jailbroken iOS. Not really satisfying, but Google made an open source kernel into a proprietary mess of literal spyware.

gschrader• 8 years ago

but is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena.

Are you suggesting Google doesn’t also have to do this?

cageface5• 8 years ago

No my point is that all cloud providers have to do this so there's not as much difference in effective privacy between them as discussions often seem to assume.

Seems like you need to store all your data locally or encrypted on your own servers if you really want privacy.

rgovostes• 8 years ago

Apple ... is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena.

Apple must of course comply with a subpoena, but it can only hand over data it holds the keys to. The iOS Security whitepaper[1] goes into some details. Any encryption keys that are stored in iCloud Keychain "share[] the security characteristics of iCloud Keychain—the keys are available only on the user’s trusted devices, and not to Apple or any third party." This is used for some, but not all, categories of iCloud data today—iMessage transcripts, for instance, are safe only if you do not use iCloud Backup.

1: https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide....

Your post makes it sound like Google targeting ads to you and Apple complying with legal data requests happen with the same frequency, which is obviously false, and definitely is a difference in practical terms for the everyday user.

According to Apple's transparency report[2], they gave data up in 2,088 account requests in the United States in the first half of 2018.

2: https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-request...

cageface5• 8 years ago

I agree there are some important differences but for my own privacy I’m much less concerned about being targeted by ads then I am about some future administration deciding I’m a person of interest for some reason and subpoenaing my entire online life. In that respect there doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between the two.

I deleted my Facebook account because Facebook actually has sold user data to third parties.

edraferi• 8 years ago

Excited to see DDG's local search improving. I once ordered take out from a restaurant in another state based on a careless DDG search...

NelsonMinar• 8 years ago

Is this the first consumer web interface for Apple Maps? I guess the JS toolkit has been around for about half a year now, but is anyone else significant publishing web maps with it?

Brakenshire8• 8 years ago

This decision to move away from open infrastructure actually clarifies something I’ve been thinking about DDG recently. When you think about it, DDG is actually very similar to Apple in terms of its offer to users. It is a closed service which offers privacy as part of its marketing. That’s not to dismiss it outright or say the offer is not useful or not sincere, both are valuable alternatives to Google, but in the long run their promise has no legal backing. Both could switch to a different model overnight if their incentives shifted.

We could spend a decade evangelising for DDG, it becomes a significant mainstream player, and then gets sold to someone with totally different priorities. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong, is there a legal barrier to this scenario playing out?

Terretta• 8 years ago

Business models are probably stickier than tech stacks.

Brakenshire8• 8 years ago

It’s not really a choice of one or the other, most companies that contribute to open infrastructure also have a business model that relies on that. For instance Red Hat, it can be bought but both the business model and the legal backing for the tech licensing are sticky.

foxes• 8 years ago

Why are people such fans of Ddg and not searx.me? searx is entirely open source and you can run your own instance.

Ddg reportedly does collect some information (?), and their core is closed source.

thekyle2• 8 years ago

I think it's probably that DDG does a better job at marketing themselves. Whenever there is any sort of privacy scandal there always seems to be some comment from their PR dept.

Personally, I am highly skeptical regarding DDG and find much of their marketing to be hyperbolic (see the duck.com foolishness [0]). For me, I feel that if I'm just going to get Bing search results and Bing ads, I might as well just use Bing.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595612/google-antitrust...

MrBra4• 8 years ago

Does it have its own crawling engine?

jordache• 8 years ago

duck duck go is pretty horrible compared to google, for search results... i wish it wasn't. Tried it, both myself and my less tech savvy wife, thought wtf is this?

dcow• 8 years ago

The experience is already better. Thank you. Now please delete Yelp (or at least let me turn it off).

ac130kz• 8 years ago

Their core is proprietary, therefore there is virtually no difference between Google and DDG in terms of privacy

paul7986• 8 years ago

Cool I don’t have to bang Google for directions anymore!

I started using DDG (slowly trying to remove Google as much out of my daily life as possible) after reading about how Google ATAP tried to patent a MIT researchers life’s work without her knowledge or consent.

known• 8 years ago

http://wikimapia.org can be a win-win to DDG

needle0• 8 years ago

I wasn't even aware DDG had maps at all since they never once showed up for me. Probably because I am entering Japanese addresses, and their address parser isn't recognizing them as such. As much as I wish to use it, much of DDG has been and continues to be really abysmal if you're living in non-English-speaking Asia. I really worry if they're aware and/or are bothering to improve this.

vkaku• 8 years ago

Apple should launch an alternative to Google Maps on Android. I can slowly see the transition coming.

I love Here Maps too, it's good to have alternatives to Google products.

SudoEpoch• 8 years ago

I've been waiting on a better alternative to google for many years. I've use DDG when I can but the quality indexes are just not there. Google was at the pinnacle of balance just before they got rid of uncle-sam and reg exp search options. Now every search is tailored to your previous metadata.

arendtio2• 8 years ago

I wish they would have done a bit more testing: With Firefox I can't change my position by dragging (looks like an image) and with chrome, I can't zoom with the mouse wheel...

0ld• 8 years ago

Is there any point in talking about DDG "privacy" as long as they use yandex (which is basically an fsb (kgb) outlet) as a search backend?

buster• 8 years ago

As much as Google is an FBI outlet or what do you mean? Is there a point if DDG doesn't send personal data to yandex?

I'd expect DDG to not send my IP address or browser info to yandex. Is that not the case?

diorray• 8 years ago

DDG and Apple? seems fishy

koolhead17• 8 years ago

Who uses Apple Maps?

zelphirkalt• 8 years ago

Eh ... What?! This thing isn't functioning at all! How did they think what they have now with Apply maps could ever replace what they had before in terms of functionality?! What were they thinking? Just to mention a few issues I hit on the first attempt of using it:

- I cannot search?! I can only search on DuckDuckGo, THEN click on the map tab and see a SINGLE location, no similar locations or whatever. And then I cannot in the map tab search? How ridiculous is that? Now I need to do a completely new DuckDuckGo search, hope that it will magically find the street or whatever I search, even if there are multiple ones in the same city. - I cannot look for directions from A to B?! When I click the "Directions" button I get redirected to bing.com, which is currently blocked to a 100%. I don't want to go to bing, I want to get DIRECTIONS, on the DuckDuckGo map tab and not on another website. - I cannot even ZOOM, wtf? I keep using the mouse wheel and nothing happens! This thing is so broken.

And this is only the first visit of the map tab. How they f'ed that up, omg.

DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

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