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Comment by SkyMarshal | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean by "huge deposit in terms of trust" re rolling their own maps? Am I interpreting correctly that that was a good thing?

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Apple took a huge hit business-wise by rolling their own (adequate but inferior to Google's) maps. One of the reasons they made the split was that Google wanted user and usage data that Apple was unwilling to share. Google was offering vector map data (as opposed to tile-based) in exchange for that user data, and Apple refused. So, Apple bought user information protection (or, at least soloing) in exchange for loss of map quality. I believe that's the "deposit of trust"

I remember to have read that they shut down the G maps because Google expected them to force users to sign in for the full experience (eg turn-by-turn navigation, which at that time was only featured on android). That was the point at which Apple had to walk away from the deal

My guess is that the GP meant “huge deficit in trust” and autocorrect or fast typing made that into “huge deposit in trust”. So GP is saying that Apple ditching Google Maps to roll out its own wasn’t a good idea at that time and eroded trust (on that topic, Apple Maps is still pathetic and comical outside of the U.S. and a few other countries).

Nope I meant what I wrote. Ditching Google for mapping was probably for two reasons: quit giving google data from iOS users using maps, and corollary to that, garner more support from those more security minded.

I value Apple’s stance on privacy, and I agree that Apple balking at Google’s terms to get user information from maps was the right decision. But I don’t believe it added any deposit of trust from Maps — on the contrary, its own implementation was so poor to get trashed in the press and was the main reason Scott Forstall was fired. I’ll say it again, based on personal experience (even recently), Apple Maps is still pathetic to be completely useless in many Asian countries. It didn’t and doesn’t garner any trust in those places.

I think it's gotten better but if I want to get to a place and trust that I can get to a really hard to find place I use google maps. From a user's perspective I agree. But if Apple could or did, I'd use Apple's search engine over Google's (a la the use case for duckduckgo), just so I wasn't funding Google. But I make compromises like anyone else.

Imagine you are now the only person who has to be satisfied with the confidence you feel in map products.

Otherwise you equally weight everything giving nobody any preference other than no data and no location.

Now you realize that everyone has disabled maps until you switch them on because you rely on API location information.

However the five years since you began enforcing privacy has allowed everyone to reach parity.. partly because nobody is piggy backing the others.

I can't think of the way I could trade off the what next situation I just described: get everyone using power hungry chips to get you a chance at the bad guy .. how does it work if you balance the players?

All Maps apps have issues, it's not the easiest problem in the world to solve. I have no doubt Google Maps is better. But I also have no doubt that Apple should get megakudos for Apple Maps, even in countries where it works worst at least it's an option that doesn't require you being tracked.

I really, really wish they would have bought Waze. It was a big coup for Google to buy them up. Had Apple bought Waze, Apple maps would be much better today.

I’m pretty sure Waze never had their own maps, so that wouldn’t have helped Apple at all. And it would have only been a small aquihire since the Waze UI is too opinionated and non-Appley to be the default maps app anyway.

Waze started out as a community-based map building startup. They had their own maps.

I believe you’re still misunderstanding the deposit of trust thing. It’s not about app quality at all or any of that.

Imagine “trust” is a currency, and each user had a “trust account” into which more trust could be deposited (or withdrawn). Apple made a large deposit of trust-as-currency into each user’s account when they axed the Google Maps relationship. Google was demanding a large tax/withdrawal from each user’s trust account. Apple stopped that, effectively making a large deposit of trust back into each user’s account.

Yes, Apple’s Maps has suffered and been inferior. But it isn’t taxing/withdrawing from each user’s trust balance.

I'd say it represented both a deposit in terms of security trust, and a withdrawal in terms of functionality-quality trust.

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