This is cool to see, and I think should be a virtuous cycle. As I understand it, maps is the kind of thing where more usage really helps make the map better, and while DDG doesn’t bring the scale of being the iphone’s default map, it should be adding a non-trivial amount of traffic.
I’ve used Apple Maps as my primary map since it came out, and I’ve only gotten a wrong location one time in literally thousands of searches, and that was years ago. It wasn’t really ready when it launched, but it has gotten consistently better over time. The UX is great, in many cases the satellite imagery is more up-to-date compared to Google, and it doesn’t maul my battery to use. Not saying it’s clearly better than Google, because it isn’t, but for my usage it’s more than “good enough,” and I love to see Apple’s privacy respecting products compete effectively with big G.
If privacy is worth something to you, it’s clearly better than Google.
I, too, use Apple as my primary map. In many cases, Apple Maps is better Google. The ones in which it’s behind are more than made up for by Apple’s values.
Apple Maps doesn’t do bike routes which is reason enough not to use it.
Google Maps does a very nice job for bikes. If I should wish something of Google Maps it would be “I bring my bike on the train” routes, which is a very common and nice way to get around here in Denmark at least.
I primarily use Apple Maps and its directions and the accuracy of roads have always been great for me. But sometimes I can't find a POI and searching for POIs can be significantly worse than Google Maps.
Here's the issue with this: the live-traffic component of google maps, waze, etc. is very much a network effect. You get a lot of traffic info by measuring the speeds and stalls of your users. This creates the classic chicken-and-egg problem: need users to get data; need data to get users.
> Not saying it’s clearly better than Google, because it isn’t, but for my usage it’s more than “good enough”
I’ve just started testing Apple Maps as Google Maps replacement, and the quality seems to be highly dependent on the location. Cities, densely populated areas seem fine, but I’m currently traveling somewhat rural polish areas and apple maps seems to have no distinction between solid country roads and unpaved path. If it shows up on a map, you can travel it seems to be its credo.
Same as you - been using it for years. In Southern California, its just as good as Google Maps, and the updated version is miles ahead when it comes to actual map details. Google Maps looks spartan compared to the Apple version these days.
The Google mapping properties are definitely on the decline. My theory is that they are less critical to the advertising business.
For navigation, Waze can't find a route 1/5 times for a longer trip, and Google Maps gets weirder and more hostile to use every few months. For me, they have tweaked their routing engine to be more "creative" and direct you in weird ways. Big G is too fat and happy and they need a challenge.
Apple Maps is fine now from an accuracy POV. They are more conservative about routing and Apple gives the app privileged treatment on iOS that improves the UX while driving. Now that Apple seems to be embracing letting services move beyond their platform, I think we'll see them give Google a run for their money.
I choose to use Apple maps for navigating most places within a city. On iPhone, I think it has far superior ux design. In between cities I use google maps because I feel it is more up to date.
I use it all the time. In Portland it is as good as GMaps is at navigating fastest route during heavy traffic. Which is to say, not perfect, but adequate. It has yet to take me to the wrong location.
That's a pretty funny comment, but I believe so far NK has actually failed to show continent level accuracy. They've only shown Pacific Ocean accuracy. XD
It depends on the country, but for search what really matters are the points of interest and Apple Maps in my country doesn't have any, whereas OSM and Google Maps are competing head to head.
Even for driving, the OSM apps available, while lower quality, are more reliable when I travel to Bulgaria for example. The penetration of Google Maps in Eastern Europe isn't great and Apple Maps isn't worth bothering with.
Anyway, I wonder why DuckDuckGo is choosing Apple Maps. It makes no sense IMO from a user experience perspective.
Remember that if you're in California or New York, those are the primary markets targeted by all tech companies, so your experience with Apple Maps is not representative of the rest of the world.
In my travels OSM fares quite well in terms of its POS database and is the only one that can compete with Google Maps in that regard.
In Germany I use OSM exclusively for navigating and it is very good. Maybe not quite on the level of Google maps concerning things like live traffic, but certainly good enough to reach your goal and then some. Love the project and would have liked to have DuckDuckGo support it instead of using proprietary data.
Google Maps has shown what can happen if you use it for anything business critical.
edit:
Sadly OSM doesn't yet have services like forward adress search (might be too expensive to provide). It would enable many businesses to use it for adress comparison to clean up their own data for example. I think that could put OSM on the map so to speak.
If I am not mistaken OSM will only give you a database but not the map tiles. For that you need to get them from some service such as MapBox, Google or Apple. Usually these are paid by tiles and Apple is currently the cheapest.
> Anyway, I wonder why DuckDuckGo is choosing Apple Maps. It makes no sense IMO from a user experience perspective.
It makes sense from a privacy perspective. Both of the companies are probably aware of the fact that Apple Maps are really fucking bad at the moment. So was DDG at the beginning. It's incredibly difficult to offer a product that matches Google's when you're two decades behind. The only way to improve is to gather more data. You don't need to collect personal data in order to improve the service, just data in general.
Including Apple Maps in a privacy-first search engine gives Apple the marketing boost in their target market: relatively rich people that do have something to hide. If you use a privacy-aware search engine, and you see that search engine partnering with Apple, it's easier to believe that Apple truly is privacy aware. I still have my doubts, but they're slowly but surely diminishing.
From DDG's perspective, it gives them relevance. They're no longer just a small player in the market trying to make a name for themselves. They're big enough to be able to partner with Apple. This isn't their first collaboration neither: Safari was the first major browser that included their search engine out of the box (Firefox was the second one, about two months later).
It also makes perfect sense for them to stick together, because their ultimate goal is the same: to offer an alternative to surveillance capitalism. It still doesn't make much sense in the short run, but it makes perfect sense in the long run. The more people distrust Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon, the more they're gonna look for the alternatives. DDG, Apple, and similar companies just need to be stubborn. The market will find them, not the other way around.
> For example, try a query such as "coffee shops" and zoom in on the map to refine your search.
There is exactly one result for "coffee shops" in San Francisco. The tech and privacy initiatives sound good, but unfortunately the data needs work to pass basic sanity checks.
I'm still so perplexed why they didn't go with OpenStreetMaps which are not only floss but also infinitely better. Apple maps are absolutely useless in my region, while osm has always been at least toretable experience wherever I went in the world. Actually OSM is often better than google maps - the only thing it really lacks is better user review ecosystem.
OSM doesn't have great APIs, you end up having to have GIS experts on your team in order to use it in your product.
source:someone who tried to use OSM stuff in a IoT fleet tracking system. Even Bing maps is better than OSM
One thing thing that I love about Apple Maps is that they have the name of every river, stream, creek, and ditch if you zoom in far enough. I can't find this information in Google Maps (maybe there's a way to find it, but zooming in doesn't do it). This was exceptionally helpful on my recent trip to Corsica, where I was searching for a specific stream with a genetically significant population of native trout. Apple Maps made finding it a breeze, and even had the name of all the tributaries that flow into it, which were essentially just trickles.
I subscribe to OnX Maps for most of my fishing and hunting research in the United States, but Apple Maps is a pretty great free option.
Sidenote: I use duckduckgo for Safari search. I saw an ad on twitter for something that I searched in a private window of Safari. Not sure whose fault that is, but it really disturbed me.
My "shorthand" address missed my house by about 5 miles, and the precise mailing address (like I'd use on an envelope) brought up a steakhouse about 8 miles away. My company name dropped me in Saudi Arabia, and the exact address dropped me in New York (I'm in Minnesota).
It's the same issue I have with Open Street Maps, if you're not in SF/NYC/Chi they're damn near useless. OSM at least gets me to the correct block, although it's still off by about 500 feet.
Edit: Oh boy, this is like Cuil again. Grand Canyon brings up a mall in Israel, Burj Khalifa is somehow underwater, Eifel Tower brings up Las Vegas, Roman Colosseum some residential street in Houston. Statue of Liberty and Taj Mahal are the only two landmarks I tried it got correct. I get it's a "beta", but ouch. If you can't get addresses or major landmarks correct this shouldn't even be public facing yet.
There are ways to track besides the search engine. The website you landed on might have done it. Not saying it wasn't ddg, but that there are many possibilities (and what I think is a major part of the problem)
Their values would align significantly, and OpenStreetMap has excellent road and path coverage in my experience (though struggles with Points of Interest).
Not sure if it's a lot to ask, but I'll consider it a killer app if DDG can let user opt which map source to choose from? e.g. Some may prefer Google, and some may prefer openstreetmap?
I was a big defender of Apple Maps, largely because I almost never saw any problems with the data. Then I moved into an apartment complex in which Apple had the driveway in the wrong place.
Apple Maps believes that the driveways are to the south and east, but in fact the front driveway--the main entrance--is to the north, and there is no direct passage from the east. So every set of directions to or from those apartments begins or ends incorrectly. When leaving, I just have to guess whether I should turn east on Arapaho to catch up to where Maps thinks I should have ended up on Preston to start out, or whether it will send me west on Arapaho once it realizes I'm already most of a block in that direction from Preston. It added a minute or two to every trip, and delivery people would fail to find my apartment unless I specifically said "don't use Apple Maps." So I started saying that to everyone, all the time.
Apple's commitment to privacy means that they deliberately don't track the beginning or ending of any trip, but that's precisely the bits they needed to track to see that their routing was completely and totally wrong. So the problem will apparently never be fixed, at least until an Apple employee happens to want to visit a friend who lives in the Enclave at Prestonwood and realizes they can't get there.
So I've switched to Google Maps, and I loathe the lack of privacy, but I love the sharing option, so I guess I'm staying, even though I live elsewhere now.
Tangentially, I noticed that when I start typing a word in my Chrome URL input field, it started to privilege Google searches instead of websites I normally visit.
It is very annoying to type "n <enter>" and it goes on to search any query starting with "n" that I happened to have searched in the past instead of going to HN as it was the case for the last several years.
It is happening now with all my usual "shortcuts".
Chrome now is less a browser and more a Google widget.
I wonder if I change the default search engine to DuckDuckGo it would still be the case.
I thought people complaining in the comments were just being critical, but I clicked the “coffee shops” example search in the post - I’m in Hong Kong - and it showed me only 2 results:
Google maps recently made nice improvements when search history is turned off. It used to nag constantly to turn search history on and now it no longer does that and saves searches on my device with a clear setting to turn it off.
The ability to limit the duration of search history is another nice feature.
I feel less inclined to use Apple maps these days.
In my region (Germany) Apple Maps are not very helpful, compared to Openstreetmap they are incomplete and/or years back. I absoluty can't see why they chose to use them.
For those interested in the differences between the maps providers, Justin OBeirne has a set of absolutely wonderful blog posts on them. I look forward to the next one.
About a year ago Apple maps helped me find the entrance to an airport when Google maps was absolutely insisting the only entrance was something extremely wrong. Outside of waving someone down on a motorway to get directions (yes I was really dumb and walked alongside a major road to an airport, had a lot of free time...) or paying an absolute ton to get a taxi to find me and take me to the correct entrance I was probably going to miss my flight home if I didn't think to try Apple maps.
Anyways, it was a really good lesson in the value of checking multiple sources of truth, which gets harder and harder to remember as Google penetrate further into our lives.
I love Google Maps a lot but it's becoming very bloated. I would love to use Apple Maps, but I just don't trust it to be reliable and comprehensive enough on the basic features I need.
Talking about maps, is anyone has a "Direction API" cheaper than Google maps?
Google maps is excessively expensive ( 5USD per 1000 queries [1] ) for my side project. I'm trying to get an estimate time (driving and public transport) between 2 places in large city.
[+] [-] burlesona|6 years ago|reply
I’ve used Apple Maps as my primary map since it came out, and I’ve only gotten a wrong location one time in literally thousands of searches, and that was years ago. It wasn’t really ready when it launched, but it has gotten consistently better over time. The UX is great, in many cases the satellite imagery is more up-to-date compared to Google, and it doesn’t maul my battery to use. Not saying it’s clearly better than Google, because it isn’t, but for my usage it’s more than “good enough,” and I love to see Apple’s privacy respecting products compete effectively with big G.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|6 years ago|reply
If privacy is worth something to you, it’s clearly better than Google.
I, too, use Apple as my primary map. In many cases, Apple Maps is better Google. The ones in which it’s behind are more than made up for by Apple’s values.
[+] [-] dybber|6 years ago|reply
Google Maps does a very nice job for bikes. If I should wish something of Google Maps it would be “I bring my bike on the train” routes, which is a very common and nice way to get around here in Denmark at least.
[+] [-] jxdxbx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bin0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xylakant|6 years ago|reply
I’ve just started testing Apple Maps as Google Maps replacement, and the quality seems to be highly dependent on the location. Cities, densely populated areas seem fine, but I’m currently traveling somewhat rural polish areas and apple maps seems to have no distinction between solid country roads and unpaved path. If it shows up on a map, you can travel it seems to be its credo.
[+] [-] gog|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xenospn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caiob|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Spooky23|6 years ago|reply
For navigation, Waze can't find a route 1/5 times for a longer trip, and Google Maps gets weirder and more hostile to use every few months. For me, they have tweaked their routing engine to be more "creative" and direct you in weird ways. Big G is too fat and happy and they need a challenge.
Apple Maps is fine now from an accuracy POV. They are more conservative about routing and Apple gives the app privileged treatment on iOS that improves the UX while driving. Now that Apple seems to be embracing letting services move beyond their platform, I think we'll see them give Google a run for their money.
[+] [-] cletus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|6 years ago|reply
Not sure which one got it wrong. We ended up in some neighborhood two miles from the theater.
I knew once we pulled off the main road and into that neighborhood that we were screwed.
[+] [-] willio58|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ummonk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bredren|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamtheworstdev|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helix438745|6 years ago|reply
Dude, Apple Maps jokes are so 2012.
Apple Maps has improved significantly in recent years. With iOS 13, it's going to annihilate Google Maps.
[+] [-] mcs_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimliu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bad_user|6 years ago|reply
It depends on the country, but for search what really matters are the points of interest and Apple Maps in my country doesn't have any, whereas OSM and Google Maps are competing head to head.
Even for driving, the OSM apps available, while lower quality, are more reliable when I travel to Bulgaria for example. The penetration of Google Maps in Eastern Europe isn't great and Apple Maps isn't worth bothering with.
Anyway, I wonder why DuckDuckGo is choosing Apple Maps. It makes no sense IMO from a user experience perspective.
Remember that if you're in California or New York, those are the primary markets targeted by all tech companies, so your experience with Apple Maps is not representative of the rest of the world.
In my travels OSM fares quite well in terms of its POS database and is the only one that can compete with Google Maps in that regard.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|6 years ago|reply
Google Maps has shown what can happen if you use it for anything business critical.
edit: Sadly OSM doesn't yet have services like forward adress search (might be too expensive to provide). It would enable many businesses to use it for adress comparison to clean up their own data for example. I think that could put OSM on the map so to speak.
[+] [-] yoz-y|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thekid314|6 years ago|reply
There is plenty of room for these tech companies to plow some of their profits into data sets from outside San Francisco.
[+] [-] r3bl|6 years ago|reply
It makes sense from a privacy perspective. Both of the companies are probably aware of the fact that Apple Maps are really fucking bad at the moment. So was DDG at the beginning. It's incredibly difficult to offer a product that matches Google's when you're two decades behind. The only way to improve is to gather more data. You don't need to collect personal data in order to improve the service, just data in general.
Including Apple Maps in a privacy-first search engine gives Apple the marketing boost in their target market: relatively rich people that do have something to hide. If you use a privacy-aware search engine, and you see that search engine partnering with Apple, it's easier to believe that Apple truly is privacy aware. I still have my doubts, but they're slowly but surely diminishing.
From DDG's perspective, it gives them relevance. They're no longer just a small player in the market trying to make a name for themselves. They're big enough to be able to partner with Apple. This isn't their first collaboration neither: Safari was the first major browser that included their search engine out of the box (Firefox was the second one, about two months later).
It also makes perfect sense for them to stick together, because their ultimate goal is the same: to offer an alternative to surveillance capitalism. It still doesn't make much sense in the short run, but it makes perfect sense in the long run. The more people distrust Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon, the more they're gonna look for the alternatives. DDG, Apple, and similar companies just need to be stubborn. The market will find them, not the other way around.
[+] [-] baddox|6 years ago|reply
There is exactly one result for "coffee shops" in San Francisco. The tech and privacy initiatives sound good, but unfortunately the data needs work to pass basic sanity checks.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coffee+shops&ia=web&iaxm=maps&stri...
Edit:
Searching for "coffee shop" (singular) shows many more results. Perhaps the blog post should use that as its example.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coffee+shop&ia=web&iaxm=maps&stric...
[+] [-] iamaelephant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kabacha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kkarakk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WillyF|6 years ago|reply
I subscribe to OnX Maps for most of my fishing and hunting research in the United States, but Apple Maps is a pretty great free option.
[+] [-] dsd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exadeci|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olah_1|6 years ago|reply
Sidenote: I use duckduckgo for Safari search. I saw an ad on twitter for something that I searched in a private window of Safari. Not sure whose fault that is, but it really disturbed me.
[+] [-] scrooched_moose|6 years ago|reply
My "shorthand" address missed my house by about 5 miles, and the precise mailing address (like I'd use on an envelope) brought up a steakhouse about 8 miles away. My company name dropped me in Saudi Arabia, and the exact address dropped me in New York (I'm in Minnesota).
It's the same issue I have with Open Street Maps, if you're not in SF/NYC/Chi they're damn near useless. OSM at least gets me to the correct block, although it's still off by about 500 feet.
Edit: Oh boy, this is like Cuil again. Grand Canyon brings up a mall in Israel, Burj Khalifa is somehow underwater, Eifel Tower brings up Las Vegas, Roman Colosseum some residential street in Houston. Statue of Liberty and Taj Mahal are the only two landmarks I tried it got correct. I get it's a "beta", but ouch. If you can't get addresses or major landmarks correct this shouldn't even be public facing yet.
[+] [-] godelski|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldgun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdff|6 years ago|reply
Imo there's no point in dealing with ddg on an iphone if you can't even install adblockers.
[+] [-] solarkraft|6 years ago|reply
Is it just another step towards aligning with Apple for an eventual buyout/search engine standard?
That said: If privacy is the only concern Apple seems to be a pretty good ally, as the only major player with a significant interest in it.
[+] [-] jakecopp|6 years ago|reply
Their values would align significantly, and OpenStreetMap has excellent road and path coverage in my experience (though struggles with Points of Interest).
[+] [-] oldgun|6 years ago|reply
Just a thought.
[+] [-] pwinnski|6 years ago|reply
I've moved since, so I'll spell it out: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=5940+Arapaho+Rd%2C+75248&t=osx&ia=...
Apple Maps believes that the driveways are to the south and east, but in fact the front driveway--the main entrance--is to the north, and there is no direct passage from the east. So every set of directions to or from those apartments begins or ends incorrectly. When leaving, I just have to guess whether I should turn east on Arapaho to catch up to where Maps thinks I should have ended up on Preston to start out, or whether it will send me west on Arapaho once it realizes I'm already most of a block in that direction from Preston. It added a minute or two to every trip, and delivery people would fail to find my apartment unless I specifically said "don't use Apple Maps." So I started saying that to everyone, all the time.
Apple's commitment to privacy means that they deliberately don't track the beginning or ending of any trip, but that's precisely the bits they needed to track to see that their routing was completely and totally wrong. So the problem will apparently never be fixed, at least until an Apple employee happens to want to visit a friend who lives in the Enclave at Prestonwood and realizes they can't get there.
So I've switched to Google Maps, and I loathe the lack of privacy, but I love the sharing option, so I guess I'm staying, even though I live elsewhere now.
[+] [-] soneca|6 years ago|reply
It is very annoying to type "n <enter>" and it goes on to search any query starting with "n" that I happened to have searched in the past instead of going to HN as it was the case for the last several years.
It is happening now with all my usual "shortcuts".
Chrome now is less a browser and more a Google widget.
I wonder if I change the default search engine to DuckDuckGo it would still be the case.
[+] [-] larrysalibra|6 years ago|reply
One coffee shop in Hong Kong and one on the other side of the Pearl River Delta in Macau. That’s pretty bad. Screenshot here: https://twitter.com/larrysalibra/status/1151182624108318720?...
[+] [-] jcampbell1|6 years ago|reply
The ability to limit the duration of search history is another nice feature.
I feel less inclined to use Apple maps these days.
[+] [-] m8rl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SanchoPanda|6 years ago|reply
https://www.justinobeirne.com/
[+] [-] JansjoFromIkea|6 years ago|reply
Anyways, it was a really good lesson in the value of checking multiple sources of truth, which gets harder and harder to remember as Google penetrate further into our lives.
[+] [-] garysahota93|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eric_khun|6 years ago|reply
Any suggestions welcome!
[1] https://developers.google.com/maps/billing/understanding-cos...
[+] [-] philshem|6 years ago|reply