Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation

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I've been using Google Maps a long time, and during all of that time I have only used GPS for location tracking on Android.

Depending upon the version of Android, I've had different things disabled. Wifi scanning. Bluetooth. Cell location data. Etc. Always with one single goal -- GPS only for location.

And further, this is always, especially with newer versions of Android, restricted in many ways. For example, only allowing when an app is active, and so on.

Google has always played games with Maps, using dark patterns. For example, with the versions prior to the current version, if I wanted Maps to zoom in on my location, I'd hit the tracking button.

It'd first say something like "To continue, turn on device location". Of course, device location is on, but it's only for GPS, and google so badly wants that (apparently) vital, and sweet wifi + bluetooth + cell tracking data.

Yet you could cancel this before, and it would then zoom in on your present location. Because, of course, GPS works fine for that.

I could also use only GPS, leaving wifi and bluetooth and so on scanning off to use navigation. I've driven all over North America and Europe that way too, and yes with Maps. Tricky dark patterns (ie, lying) about needing wifi scanning to find a route is just insulting, and absurd.

Now, enter a new update. I can no longer navigate with Google Maps, unless full location tracking is on. Comments in Play Store indicate others hit the same wall. Yeah, right Google, driving in the middle of the country, with GPS, is helped by scanning wifi while I pass farmer's fields?!

Google has now drawn a line in the sand. Give us all your local SSIDs, local bluetooth connections, with likely even more detail, or they now refuse to allow you to use Maps to navigate.

I immediately installed Organic Maps, and I'm sure there are loads of others as an option.

Google wants that wifi data so bad, that the only thing I can equate it to, is a used car salesperson. I get the impression that the Maps team is channeling Sméagol, and just shudder.

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Refusing service when the user does not consent to non-essential data sharing is illegal in the EU, and it also breaches Google Play's developer agreement. WiFi scanning is not essential to navigate with an app, and the least they could do to follow the law is to gracefully degrade the service if the user does not consent to share data about nearby devices, such as disabling traffic predictions.

Of course Google's lawyers will argue that this data is in fact required for navigation, the same way some banks in the EU now claim "legitimate interest" when they send you a message about their credit card promotions with winnable prizes, after you've explicitly opted out from all marketing communications.

> non-essential data sharing

But it is essential. Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS. In theory GPS has the accuracy, but remember you are in a big metal box filled with electrical wires. Not to mention other applications like isle specific navigation within stores, which is made possible by bluetooth beacons.

Heck, we are on the verge of a major world conflict where GPS accuracy may be degraded intentionally by the US or jammed by other forces.

Edit: Navigation is used in situations other than racing down the autobahn at 100 mph. Wifi triangulation is used when you are doing 20 mph on a busy street and need to be in the right lane to make a turn, or when you are walking down the street and need to know which unmarked door is the business you are looking for.

Here is some background on why GPS is shit in urban environments: https://vitalalert.com/markets/positioning-smart-cities/3d-p...

>But it is essential. Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS. In theory GPS has the accuracy, but remember you are in a big metal box filled with electrical wires. Not to mention other applications like isle specific navigation within stores, which is made possible by bluetooth beacons.

As someone who's degree had a course in sattelite rangefinding(both code and phase), this is bullshit. Code GPS measurement should be enough for that. Especially when you already contain road data to which you can snap, and probably have access to accelerometer too which can easily improve accuracy of 'snapping'.

You don't need to get precision down to a lane on the road for purpose of navigation, you just need to 'snap' to the right road. and warn user beforehand if they need to take a turn. Just like 'dumb' GPS navigation did prior to smartphone era, while having access to less satellite systems.

Not correct. Wifi is not used to boost precision at speed. That is generally done via dead reckoning using the gyroscope and accelerometer. Wifi helps with bootstrapping a coarse location quickly before satellites can be acquired, and with indoor positioning.

> But it is essential. Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS.

Assuming that's true (I'm skeptical), there's no reason why it can't gracefully degrade without the added information.

Regardless, I'm not sure what you mean by lane-specific navigation. Yes, I've seen Google put up a little drawing of the multiple lanes, with the correct lanes for the next turn in bright white, and the incorrect lanes in grey, but that doesn't need to know what lane you're currently in, as it just highlights which lanes are correct and incorrect, regardless of where you are.

Lane specific driving directions?

How many Wifi access points and Bluetooth beacons is Google expecting to find on the highway while moving at 70mph?

Maps routinely tells me to "use the right two lanes to exit", but it doesn't show any awareness of where I am. It says the same thing whether I'm in the left lane or the exit lanes. Are others getting directions like "merge two lanes to the right to exit"?

Wifi and cell tower location are much less precise than GPS. They are irrelevant for lane detection.

Where they are useful is when you are indoors. Or when a tracking business wants an excuse to send your location to their servers.

Information about nearby devices is not essential for navigation, otherwise the permission wouldn't have been optional until now. It can improve the service in some situations, so the right way would be to explain the tradeoff and let the user control how much data is being shared.

> But it is essential. Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS. In theory GPS has the accuracy, but remember you are in a big metal box filled with electrical wires. Not to mention other applications like isle specific navigation within stores, which is made possible by bluetooth beacons.

Tell me exactly how this bluetooth beacons and WiFi APs will help you to determine the lanes? I did several research projects in this area and RF mapping by indoor beacons for navigating outdoors at vehicular speeds is very hard and unreliable. You don't want to get wrong bearing just because an WiFi AP has been moved to another spot. Nice in theory, BS in practice.

>But it is essential. Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS.

I'm trying very hard to not be sarcastic, but the past 10+ years it was not essential and served me great every time

If we're at the point someone is jamming GPS, I guarantee lane specific directions is going to be about the last thing I care about.

Are you suggesting that they have no choice but to completely stop locating the user as there's absolutely no way they could offer non-lane specific navigation? The vast majority of it would be identical and I'm sure they could easily and gracefully degrade to that when strictly necessary.

My 10 year old navigation device (WindowsCE-based) has no wifi nor celluar and lane specific navigation works fine. Also having lane specific navigation is not essential.

Watch your step on that slipper slope

I don't have enough experience with the technical challenges of getting a good signal from a phone's tiny GPS antenna inside a vehicle, but that difficulty shouldn't give a company the right to violate privacy. If hardware is limited, make it better or make the limitation clear to the user and let them decide if they want to give extra data to allow a better experience.

We've had good enough navigation in mobile phones for years, why would they suddenly need to make this change now? And why can't I just keep the slightly worse experience if I prefer GPS-only location?

> But it is essential. description of feature non-essential to navigation

Sure. And stand-alone GPS navigation devices also don't work in cars.

> Heck, we are on the verge of a major world conflict where GPS accuracy may be degraded intentionally by the US or jammed by other forces.

During which (brief?) time we will have other pressing concerns beyond degraded mapping services. Why should this temporary condition that on its own is certainly not 'crippling' be an excuse for accepting that Google/Alphabet and like minded corporations want technical approaches that enable them to know everything about us 24/7?

This reason is complete nonsense. Google tells you that you need to be in the right lane for a turn regardless of which lane you are actually in.

Is nobody capable of looking out the window at the street signs that tell you which lane you need to be in to turn right?

Not really. That accuracy is not done with RSSI measurements from far away SSIDs.

WiFi triangulation is absolutely useless when determining which lane are you on. Your whole comment has been derived from false assumptions.

> Google (and Apple) maps provide lane specific navigation directions, which are really only possible with assisted GPS.

lol wtf. Source?

"But it is essential."

My box full of old TomToms and Garmins guffaws at this patently absurd claim.

This is google apologetic bs.

Can't believe I'm on this side of the debate, but at what point are we asking too much for free?

Google provide Maps for free to an incredible accuracy and value. Unlike Apple, the user is welcome to use any other app, and yet chooses to use Google Maps.

You could maybe argue that Google Maps is part of a package you bought the phone for, but realistically I think the solution is Google are just open about the use of data (which they are really) and offers a paid solution that doesn't track you.

Google is a large monopoly that subsidizes “free” products to burn a thousand mile clearing around their money engine.

If Google maps was not free, there would be more of a market for competing mapping products.

A mapping product has a natural intersection with advertisements - a non-negligible number of mapped trips are commercial in nature, and can thus catch consumers right before the moment of purchase. This might prove fertile ground for a new competitor.

So Google gives maps away, and anyone who wants to compete has to compete with free, and starts with a tremendous data disadvantage.

Through this lens, requiring you to disclose more data makes sense. They strengthen their data moat around the free product, which in turn protects their dominant position in ads.

I would like to see regulators crack down on this kind of anti-competitive behavior.

> Can't believe I'm on this side of the debate, but at what point are we asking too much for free?

You act like it's consumers moving the line. It's Google. Massively profitable for a long time now, Google. Your argument is that if we resist Google's ever-advancing march deeper into our privacy, that we consumers are the ones who are changing things, making things unfair to poor Google.

> at what point are we asking too much for free?

But isn't this reasoning sort of paradox? Google is asking for something here in exchange of allowing to use the navigation feature. That makes it by definition not free - it's just, there is no straight-forward monetary price to it.

You can redefine "free" as "any price other than money" - and lots of people in tech seem to do exactly that - but then, if done honestly, you'd have to allow people to reason about non-monetary prices in the same way as about monetary ones: Compare them, decide about fairness, etc.

What scares me is that frequently, this isn't done - on the contrary: A developer can make its users jump through all kinds of hoops and demand whatever they want - and all is ok because it's "free"!

> at what point are we asking too much for free?

I am a paying customer for a bunch of other Google products.

We’ve also seen with custom domain grandfathering out that they’re not out of options regarding their services terms.

They choose to make Maps free, and there is no option to pay for Maps outside of the API.

“Don’t complain it’s free.” is not a valid argument when it is a revenue making product from a for profit product company. It’s their choice, not ours.

"You could maybe argue that Google Maps is part of a package you bought the phone for"

Microsoft lost the case to be able to directly control the user's browser experience:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

Google Maps doesn't make money using wifi data. It makes money the way it always does: through ads [0,1].

[0]: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7040605?hl=en

[1]: https://ads.google.com/hotels/

>Unlike Apple, the user is welcome to use any other app,

This part of your comment makes no sense to me - how do Apple users not have choice in maps apps...?

That a service is offered for free *does not* mean that the service can request unnecessary privilege for its offering.

> at what point are we asking too much for free?

At the point that they should *STOP*, which is also free.

> Google are just open about the use of data

Will. Never. Happen. GLS is dystopian hellscape tracking masquerading under the fig leaf of "anonymity". Its technical details, pretty much a wet dream of the world's spy agencies, will never be revealed.

> and offers a paid solution that doesn't track you.

Really? Never heard of that. Can you elaborate?

At the point where Google's failures to release working, marketable, and financially successful projects are causing them to leech off freeware.

Remember openstreetmaps is also free. I fully support freeware being paywalled as that would decimate FAMANG's userbase.

Not been free for me, pre-installed on all the Android Phone I have bought, part of the purchased product.

They don't have to offer it for free. But I bet that if they stopped, someone else would.

If the business model Google themselves created will somehow fail if we don't continue to allow them to suck more and more private data out of us then so be it. They will have to change their business model. I am not interested in changing to accommodate them.

By the way, there is nothing free here. All of those advertising dollars come out of our pockets via increased products costs.

> Unlike Apple, the user is welcome to use any other app, and yet chooses to use Google Maps.

iPhones let you install Google Maps, you're not locked in to Apple Maps.

Fine, so give me a Google Maps subscription price that does not show me ads, does not save my location history. I pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads, I would pay for a privacy-preserving and ad-free Google Maps. Maps and navigation is the only reason I have a smartphone. If they can't offer that, I'll buy a feature phone and a Garmin Drive or some other device for nav.

Yes you can use other mapping apps on iOS.

On the other hand, Google has often played hardball with manufacturers who wanted to include other location technology…

https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-l...

Is it asking to get it for free, or is it regulating how you can monetize it? I don't think the argument is that Google maps has to be free, it's that they can't make you pay for it with your personal data.

This encourages a classist system where the affluent get to keep their data private and the poor working class' data is open season for companies to exploit and use for oppressive purposes.

It’s not free when you’re the product.

Please tell me this comment was written by some Google AI..

Selling organs is illegal. Maybe selling your personal / environmental data is too.

Anyone can charge money for access to an app to compensate for value of data.

> and offers a paid solution that doesn't track you.

of Maps?

I got hit with this pop-up. It is a charade, despite the UI making it feel like a technical requirement.

And here is how I know it is a charade: voice navigation and the map itself both work perfectly in the background of this undismissable pop-up.

This is the most coerced I've felt in a long time and I can't help but feel that maybe iOS users don't feel this way.

>and it also breaches Google Play's developer agreement

Why do you think the Goog's apps are bound to the same terms as other developers? That agreement allows devs use Goog's services.

Of course, though giving yourself an advantage over competitors in a market you control is also illegal, so they should at least try to keep up the appearances.

It arguably may allow the navigation to be more accurate, even if a tiny amount, though it obviously isn't strictly required since navigation works without the data.

>and the least they could do to follow the law is to gracefully degrade the service

They were already doing it and asking us to turn on camera to "better calibrate my location".

While I'm not sure if this change to Google Maps has been or will be widely rolled out, you may want to look into what GrapheneOS is working on with their Google Play compatibility layer [1]. It basically lets people use Google's services inside Android's standard app sandbox. That means they don't get access to privileged system APIs and can only access what the user chooses. It can also be used without a Google account.

GrapheneOS is working on a way to redirect the Play services location APIs to an open source implementation of those APIs which uses standard Android location APIs [2]. It's expected to be available in an upcoming release [3].

[1] https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

[2] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Loc...

[3] https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1486182874567122945

> to an open source implementation of those APIs

Is this MicroG? https://microg.org/

No, microG is a partial reimplementation of some of the functionality in the Google Mobile Services (GMS) app. Unfortunately, this approach has significant drawbacks. In order to install microG, your version of Android OS needs support for spoofing the cryptographic signatures of apps. Some OSes like LineageOS and CalyxOS allow this. See [1] for some pointers about why this is considered harmful. There was also a recent fairly serious infoleak bug in microG [2] that in my opinion was caused by its broad scope.

The way it works in GrapheneOS is that the OS redirects Binder connections (an IPC mechanism in Android) to a trusted, bundled app (GmsCompat) which will only implement the Play services location API in the foreseeable future. The rest of the Google Play functionality is implemented by GMS itself.

[1] https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html#microg...

[2] https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/1567

I wondered how long before google will have a reason for grapheneOS to suddenly stop being supoorted on the pixel. Now i know it will be soon and i get to tell everyone i told you so

They are creating custom silicon and a new operating system, wouldn't be surprised that will be the cutoff moment.

Google is moving all Android distributors to upstream Linux, so I guess it is us telling you so :).

Here we go again. Users desperately need an abstraction layer in Android that can spoof sensor data on a per-application basis. In this case, the spoofing layer could be set up such that whenever Google Maps uses the Android API to ask "Is wifi location sensing turned on" the spoofing layer would say "Yes." When GM asks "What wifi networks are around?" the spoofing layer would say "None." (Even better would be for it to just make up a bunch of random wifi SSIDs to pollute Google's wifi database with noise.)

I have several other apps (Twitter for example) who are able to tell that I have notifications for them turned off, and consequently they bug me to turn on notifications. I need a spoofing layer that tells Twitter "notifications are turned on" even when they're off, because if the app can tell some feature is turned off it will bug me or in some cases fail to work at all. So it's also critically important that there be no way for applications to figure out that the spoofing layer is in place.

Xprivacy basically did this. I supported the developer by buying the "pro" version and he promptly stopped maintaining it...and started a new project that was substantially more complicated/difficult to use, requiring writing blocking rules by hand...or paying him for the "pro" service that included 'recipes' for blocks.

Which users of the old app didn't get.

Fuck you, Marcel Bokhorst.

I do not know about this specific case and I have not used XPrivacy but I want to chime in here and say

Thank you, Marcel Bokhorst

Your NetGuard (https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard) and FairEmail (https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail) apps are great. They are high quality, open source and contain none of the dark patterns that mobile is plagued with. They are available to download from Github, F-Droid and the Playstore. There are paid premium features to support you but if I wanted to I could still compile the app myself to unlock them.

Wow, this seems like overly harsh feedback for stopping maintenance work on a project.

It's harsh, but not really about the maintenance being stopped, KennyBlanken paid for a pro version and the author changed commercial strategy and rebooted the project with a different approach, without granting a licence of the replacement to his existing customer. This is not respectful of paying customers.

big yes to this.

whenever an app asks for a permission i want these options:

    allow
    deny
    pretend allow but send empty responses (like no wifi found)
    pretend allow but send fake responses

this was supported with Xprivacy many years ago and it was fantastic, but it stopped getting support. The entire pro-privacy android scene seems to have become a very small niche over the years

That's mainly googles fault. Xposed still lives on somewhat with the Riru project, but even a rooted phone without any mods will fail securitynet checks today, rendering it useless for most consumers that would have been willing to do the process before. With every android version things become less modular and less moddable, so the community shrinks as a consequence.

interesting. f-droid has an app called xprivacylua which seems to be a successor to xprivacy. last updated less than a year ago. the problem is that it requires rooting the phone which not many people will want to do, and the xposed framework comes with a big warning that it could prevent android from booting.

what we need is to have this integrated into the core OS so that it can safely be used by anyone.

Can someone explain this to me?

Have people just given up?

Can't happen. Maps uses Google Location Services, which is built into Android and replaces the default, raw-sensor location provider for all applications. They have sunk their rootkit deep. You can't do this without uninstalling Google Play Services.

> I immediately installed Organic Maps, and I'm sure there are loads of others as an option.

Here are OSM-based maps applications for Android.[0,1]

Not all OSM-based Android apps listed on OpenStreetMap Wiki, so check out also maps apps in various F-Droid repos.[2]

Also here are maps apps for Symbian[3,4] and Maemo[5].

For other platforms there are also a lot of other apps.[6]

[0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Android#OpenStreetMap_ap...

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_ap...

[2] https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/

[3] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Symbian

[4] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/S60Maps

[5] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Software/Maemo

[6] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Software

Does anyone have a favorite that has worked well for them?

For hiking and biking, I like Windy Maps. It shows terrain contours and highlights foot and bike trail relations, and has an easy-to-use GPS track recorder. You can also ask for future weather forecasts along a navigation route, which is pretty keen if you're traveling long distances. Windy Maps does have a driving navigation mode, but I find that the extra map details that are handy for outdoors activities crowd the map too much for easy reference when driving, especially in dense areas.

For general map browsing, I tend to use Organic Maps. It does a better job rendering urban environments, and even shows primitive 3D buildings when OSM has the data. It's decent as a driving GPS.

Debatably, the best OSM-powered mobile app is OsmAnd, which is a more powerful application with the downsides that come with that -- slow, lots of settings, crowded UI. The killer features IMO are: 1) it's the only one (best I know) that allows users to zoom extremely close, which is vital to see all POIs in dense areas and also helpful to see details of parks and trails 2) it's the only one (best I know) that can interface with Android Auto enabled vehicles. (There's an iOS version of OsmAnd but I've never used it since it requires a subscription for map updates.)

There are particular use cases (eg hiking) when one of these OSM-powered apps will be an adequate or even superior replacement for Google Maps. These use cases are the exception. Google Maps has its own two killer features: 1) realtime traffic for car navigation 2) sophisticated public transit routing, again with realtime data integration.

All 3 of the above apps will attempt public transit routing, but I'd never use them. They don't comprehend train schedules, much less realtime data. They don't handle bus directions at all, though this might be down to the state of the OSM data in the locations I've tried them -- bus route relations are difficult to create and maintain in OSM, and easy to break.

I'm an OSM fanatic myself, so it's saddening not to be able to wholeheartedly endorse any of the current slate of apps. The good news is that the available apps have never been better and continue to improve. Sometime soonish it might be merely a minor inconvenience to de-google your mapping life. (Apple Maps is also pretty good with realtime traffic and public transit routing, if that's an option.)

Organic Maps is the best FOSS mobile mapping solution at the moment as far as I can tell

https://organicmaps.app/

OsmAnd+ has worked great for us for several years.

Not in the list, Here maps (with ancient roots in Nokia Maps) is excellent.

I don't know why, but I love Mapy.cz. Someone recommended it to me when I was hiking in eastern europe, and I use it daily for hiking and biking. I don't own a car but I occasionally also use it when I have rented or borrowed one and it works fine.

Osmand is the best. You can use offline maps, I highly recommend it.

Have been using it for six years now.

Search is good enough.

I don't know if there is an alternative.

Are you sure they're not doing this to get approximate location for use with A-GPS? Sure, GPS will work without it, but your time to first fix is going to be much longer, and your phone will have no idea where you are while you're waiting for that fix.

There's a good overview of A-GPS in module 5 here [1]. This is just how people expect GPS to work on modern mobile phones, to the point where they'd probably consider it a bug if they had to wait a while to get a fix.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CBINyC3NWU&list=PLGvhNIiu1u...

I think cold start times on modern GPS units are on the order of 30 seconds now. Even if you lose all almanac and ephemeris data, and don't know what time it is. AGPS is nice (2s cold start times), but by no means essential for a decent user experience.

(The datasheets are not a lie. I have had a ZED-F9P on the shelf for a month or so. Plugged it in and had a fix in 32 seconds. The delay was that I could only see 3 GPS satellites, so had to fall back to the slightly slower multi-constellation warm start.)

that most definitely is the reason to ask for wifi scanning, but the point was reiterated many times in the post. This is about privacy AND the fact that GPS-only navigation works globally just fine. If the user wishes to have that improved cold start approximate location then sure, turn on wifi scanning. If they do not wish to give that up, they should still be able to navigate

So if an app knows your exact lat long after 30s of spending battery power there's no privacy issue but if it uses wifi SSIDs around you to do the job in 2s with less power it's a breach of privacy?

Why not let the user decide what their personal privacy trade-off is?

That is, fundamentally, what the original post is about.

you misunderstand completely. sending a complete list of SSIDs from your surrounding perfectly tied to an exact GPS location gets you a map of the world and precise-enough location based solely off of SSID data. They are having customers build their database to track you later when you use any G-app that has wifi access but not gps access, they would then know your approximate location while reading emails.

I thought AGPS was just the download of almanac/ephemeris data from a server on the internet. I didn't think it had anything to do with figuring out location using visible wifi APs or anything like that. Sure, you need an internet connection to download the AGPS data, but that could also be your cellular data connection and not wifi.

AGPS works with cellular, Wi-Fi is not required. So no, it’s not only for this reason.

As I understand it, the OP is trying to keep all non-GPS location sources disabled.

> I've had different things disabled. Wifi scanning. Bluetooth. Cell location data. Etc. Always with one single goal -- GPS only for location.

Not related to Google maps, but just today I got tired of the Amazon app sending me "you might like this deal" notifications and dug into whether it's possible to disable them.

You can, but if you do, Amazon will no longer send Amazon "Smile" micro-donations to whatever charity you've selected: https://i.imgur.com/wNAkUAT.jpeg .

I can't say that this is underhanded, but it does cast into sharp relief the fact that Amazon is a $1.5 trillion dollar company that generates upwards of $3B in yearly profit, and they're jerking you around, dangling the pennies they would otherwise send to a charity, unless you let them feed you product recommendations in OS notifications. (If you just disallow the entire Amazon app from sending notifications, as far as I can tell they still give the charity whatever 0.5% cut.)

So I have to choose between 1) allowing them to send me product recommendations, 2) a poor UX because I don't get any notifications at all, or 3) just not sending the charity any of the scraps of my Amazon transactions. I chose 3 and cut the charity a larger check than usual.

That's probably a violation of the App Store Review Guidelines; you're not allowed to withdraw app functionality unrelated to notifications if a user denies notification access; Apple has various language in various places that hints at 'you can't arbitrarily take away features to compel users to opt-in' being a core intent. If you're an Apple developer, and you're willing to stake that claim with Apple, you can report it while logged in to your developer account.

It’s not a violation if the CEO of Apple is on “having lunches together” terms with the CEO of Amazon.

I'm sure Apple will get right on enforcing that with Amazon.

You're talking about the Amazon app. Technically, the fact that you can add your credit card to pay for things violates the TOS. You never see anyone put up a fight against a giant.

Incorrect; Apple allows apps associated with purchases and rentals of physical objects to add credit cards to pay for things.

In one digital goods example, Kindle books are not “sold”, even though Amazon uses the word “Buy” in the button; if Amazon truly sold you a Kindle book, then they would be required to provide it to you upon terminating your account, as it is your possession in their care, and withholding it upon request would be grounds for a lawsuit. Under such a scenario, Amazon could successfully argue that Kindle purchase should be given the same rights as physical purchases, as they are truly purchases and not just “licenses”. Amazon has chosen not to pursue that scenario to date, as granting each of us full ownership of a copy of a digital good would compel Amazon to act in ways that are hostile to Amazon’s interests.

Shopping at Amazon has become such a blatantly user-hostile experience. More than any company I've dealt with in recent memory, they seem to tolerate just about any unethical behavior - allowing fake product reviews, facilitating sale of counterfeit merchandise, and evidently withholding charitable donations if you don't allow them to pester you via your own device.

It's to the point that shopping at Amazon feels dirty to me. Why support a company that's doing everything it can to transfer your well-being to Jeff Bezos?

Other online retailers (well, only the huge ones) seem to be stepping up their game and getting closer to Amazon's logistics and shipping ability.

It reminds me of how Netflix had more or less a monopoly on big-name video streaming for a ~decade but now every major rights holder seems to have either white-labeled somebody's tech or developed their own and are clawing back their IP to only show on their own platform[0].

Amazon had a long head start in online retail. It's true that they will probably never be surpassed in catalog depth ("the everything store") but I don't delve into the long tail of that depth very much and I'll be happy to move my retail spending elsewhere.

... well, now that I think on it, my only payment method on Amazon is my Amazon Visa, which gives me something like 5% cash back / equates to a 5% discount on everything I buy from Amazon. So any competitor is going to have that headwind to fight against as well.

[0] I wonder if this was a Netflix misstep: could they have prevented this by giving a greater share of the subscription revenue to the groups they licensed content from?

Amazon has also become a dumpster for poor quality products and high prices now a days here in Canada. Few months ago, I bought some bedsheets which claimed to be Egyptian cotton but upon delivery, that wasn't true. I have had this experience with other products too now on Amazon.

Their customer service and returns are still very good but the product quality and online marketing is filled with lies.

In my experience they've always required me to go to a UPS store or retail location (Kohl's, Whole Foods, etc.) to process a return, even when it's a counterfeit product.

Returns I've elected are a great process; being forced to run errands for a $trillion+ company because they've deceived you about the bedsheets they are selling is something else entirely.

And yet sometimes I'm basically forced into using them. Twice in recent months an item bought from a retailer is 20-40% cheaper if I buy it from that same retailer but through their amazon account. It infuriates me. I'm trying to avoid amazon as much as possible, but if you charge 20-40% more for the same item when ordered direct from you vs your amazon storefront, I'll give amazon my business every time. I wish retailers would stope doing this. One item was fire starters and the other was a barbell.

Clearly that seller is getting some benefit for selling the product through Amazon, probably close to 20-40% of the value of their product if they didn't. They aren't just using Amazon because it's fun. It provides them some value.

> I'm trying to avoid amazon as much as possible, but if you charge 20-40% more for the same item when ordered direct from you vs your amazon storefront, I'll give amazon my business every time. I wish retailers would stope doing this.

Unless you change "I'll give amazon my business every time" to "I won't accept it" it will continue. It's basic economics in a competitive environment with a lot of buyers and sellers. To you, the cost of the Amazon experience is worth the financial benefit. There are likely other consumers that the Amazon experience is not worth it who buy it from the manufacturer. And likely, on the other side, there are those would use the Amazon experience for a mere 5-10% discount instead of the 20-40%. Those people receive a "consumer surplus" for getting it at 20-40% below value instead of 5-10%. The market has settled at 20-40%.

Big picture, if you don't like it in a competitive environment, buy from the manufacturer and help shift the supply demand curve.

On iOS, such marketing notifications is supposed to be against the developer guidelines but I regularly see Uber, Ubereats and other high profile companies break those rules without any repercussions.

Even Apple has broken that guideline[1]. They have since changed the rule and those are now allowed if the user agrees[2].

For Uber, disable those in Settings > Privacy > Notifications > Discounts and News.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

[2]: https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/04/apple-now-allows-push-notific...

Ah didn’t know Apple changed the guidelines.

Is uninstalling the app and using the website in a browser an option? This is what I prefer to do.

Yes.

Why not just set aside some money yourself and donate to a charity of your choosing without tying it to how you spend your money on Amazon? Making your donations directly will help you better see how your money will be used. For example, Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) tells you basically how contributions are used when you donate to them:

https://www.gems-girls.org/donate-now

Maybe he does both. I certainly do. I choose to use Smile because I can give 0.5% of my Amazon purchases to my chosen charity with no extra charge to myself. I also give a regular monthly donation; I know that the smile donations help them a lot.

I don't have the Amazon app though; I just use the website.

Amazon is setting aside some money that people are paying them specifically to donate to charity if people choose. The donations are coming from your charges

I recently uninstalled Lyft for a similar reason. It wouldn’t stop sending me marketing push notifications, which couldn’t be disabled in the app. Since notifications are pretty integral to the core function of Lyft, I couldn’t turn them all off. So I uninstalled the app.

So Amazon gives you 3 options, two of which result in a charity of your choice getting money in exchange for a minor inconvenience to you, and the third of which is to not participate in the charity program. And this makes them the bad guy?

Why not just donate the money directly to charity and not have Amazon notifications?

With Amazon Smile's charity thing, the money donated is not from my pocket. I am pretty happy with the idea of being able to give some of Amazon's money to EFF.

Simply don't use the Amazon App, and there are no notifications.

If it makes you feel any better, it's a publicly traded company. Legally, everything it does must generate shareholder value.

Smile is really just a way to get additional value from donations large companies have to make anyway for lobbying and tax purposes.

They would've happened anyway, but you get to direct it. Maybe they can sell the data it generates to identify areas or people more likely to donate to charity, and sell that data to fund raising companies.

And maybe (new use case!) they can use it to reduce opt-outs of notifications, which carry associated value.

I can envision the notification product owner reaching out to the smile team with this new opportunity. "Hey, you have this cool feature, I really think it could help here!"

>Legally, everything it does must generate shareholder value.

What's the basis for this claim?

None.

Since I am determined to crush this stupid meme, here is a longish thread discussing the relevant case law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674

The gist of it is that management must act in the best interests of the company generally, but has exceptional latitude in deciding what those are: you don’t need to squeeze every penny from customers if there’s some nebulous but plausible reason why doing so may eventually be good for the company and its shareholders. Dodge is a tough case because Ford explicitly disavowed any business reason for his actions, but instead framed it as his own philanthropic interest and not, say, a reinvestment in the company or an attempt to grow the customer base.

The Supreme Court has ruled in opposition to this perspective [1]:

“Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

Corporate Law 101.

If you have an iPhone and haven't been using Apple Maps, it's basically on par now with Google Maps for navigation. I hadn't tried Apple Maps for years because of how bad it used to be, and was pleasantly surprised to find the maps are incredibly accurate and turn by turn navigation is rock solid. I haven't touched Google Maps in months, and this post is reminding me that it's time to just uninstall it

Are you in the US? I've found it pretty ropey in Europe every time I try to ween myself off Google maps.

Another benefit of Apple maps is that it gets preferential treatment from the os in that it appears on the lock screen when navigating (I really wish this api was open to third parties). This is nice for navigation on foot.

I am in the US, yes

Apple Maps has better integration with my 2020 Subaru so I switched. It has some features that are more advanced than google, like the voice telling what to do next or advance rather than just immediately before.

It’s still rather bad about explorative searching for businesses/restaurants and getting accurate hours, so sometimes I’ll find a place using google maps and then put it into Apple Maps.

>It’s still rather bad about explorative searching for businesses/restaurants

That it just pipes Yelp results infuriates me every time I deal with it, as I refuse to sign up for Yelp.

So did I! My 2019 Subaru’s OS crashed so many times on Android auto was the reason I switched to iPhone at all.

It is amazing how long it takes to recover from a rough product roll-out, isn't it?

Truth

iPhones are strictly worse for what OP is complaining about. You cannot get your location at all in any app without enabling WiFi scanning.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708157

OP's solution of installing another Android maps app is probably the best available option that fits OP's privacy requirements.

When did this change? Last time I had an iOS device it was definitely possible to use GPS without WiFi. If this is a recent regression that is disappointing.

Simply turning off the wifi icon doesn't turn off wifi.

What I found is that google maps EXCELS in redirecting past traffic jams and what have you, when driving (cross Europe) and really no other navigation available to me (iPhone) does that even remotely as reliable.

EDIT: Meaning I am able to keep my wheels rolling and do not end up in traffic jams.

Why not Waze then? It's where google buys traffic data anyway. You also get police / speedcam etc locations and reporting.

Waze is owned by Google.

Apple maps has still been total crap for me outside the US.

Apple Maps is quite good here in New Zealand. I have an Android device and my husband has an iOS device. I have been impressed several times with Apple being able to route to places Google Maps can't. Apple seems to be better at adding new roads etc compared to Google here in New Zealand.

A little while back my area finally got the Apple Maps 3D visualization update, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. Took them some time to turn it around, but Apple definitely stepped it up after an awful start.

This is an odd response to this specific discussion, because Apple removed the user ability to disable wifi scans for location services in iOS 11. If anything, Apple is worse in this specific regard.

Maybe someone should build a portable (FCC compliant?) device to put in your car that spoofs and rotates a bunch of 2.4/5Ghz SSIDs periodically to "trick" apps that mine wifi data with GPS location. Bonus points for bogus names like "Starbucks Wifi" or "McDonalds Free Wifi" in the middle of the highway.

Even easier, just reverse engineer the API and send the SSIDs yourself.

A rapsberry pi, a drop dead simple shell script[1], and airbase[0] will get you this in 15 minutes:

[0] https://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=airbase-ng

[1] quickliest and dirtiest:

  #!/bin/bash

  while read line; do
    echo "creating basestation ${line}"
    airbase-ng -c 9 -e "${line}" -W 1 wlan0 &
  done < <(echo -e "ap_name_1\nap_name_2\nyet_more_ap")

You should also randomize the BSSID.

I used to ride a train which had onboard wifi. Whenever I was on the train and underground, Google Maps would decide that I was at the terminal station of the train - which I assume is where it first scanned that SSID - and would try to reroute me.

I had this problem for a few years back in the mid-10s - any time it saw something like "Virgin WIFI", my phone would assume I was in Manchester, even if I was in London / anywhere Virgin trains go, leading to huge jumps in location[1].

[1] which annoys me - a smartphone should be able to figure out that I have not just travelled 200 miles in 2 seconds and filter that out. This is still a (smaller) problem - my current phone often thinks I've jumped 5 miles for a minute and then back.

> Bonus points for bogus names like "Starbucks Wifi" or "McDonalds Free Wifi" in the middle of the highway.

Is the goal to make Google Maps publish a Starbucks/McDonalds in the middle of the highway? I can't imagine they would use the SSID as a source for building location.

No, the SSIDs are used to assist the GPS on where the user is located. Likewise, the data is used to triangulate a user in a specific business/location without needing access to GPS (some more nefarious uses: user is connected to "Joe's Psychiatry Wifi" every Wednesday, maybe we could group the user as a depressed adult for advertisers).

> user is connected to "Joe's Psychiatry Wifi" every Wednesday, maybe we could group the user as a depressed adult for advertisers

If you can think of any kind of nefarious use for data, you can safely bet that Zuckerberg has already done it: https://web.archive.org/web/20160830031017/http://fusion.net...

> No, the SSIDs are used to assist the GPS on where the user is located.

and vice versa, GPS is used to assist on where the SSIDs are located.

> Bonus points for bogus names like "Starbucks Wifi" or "McDonalds Free Wifi" in the middle of the highway.

I find no joy in saying it, but I bet that would get you some unwelcome attention - trademark infringement, defamation, tortious interference - from one of those companies. :(

>I find no joy in saying it, but I bet that would get you some unwelcome attention - trademark infringement, defamation, tortious interference - from one of those companies. :(

While that's a wonderfully dystopian view, I'd expect that wouldn't happen unless you attempted to use such SSIDs in a commercial context.

for your "wager" to be successful, I should expect to be sued over saying stuff like "Old McDonald had a quarter pounder Henway" or "Starbuck made the same inferior coffee for Ahab every day."

I'll await cease and desist letters from McDonald's and Starbucks.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office[0]:

   Trademark infringement is the unauthorized use of 
   a trademark or service mark on or in connection 
   with goods and/or services in a manner that is 
   likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake 
   about the source of the goods and/or services.

Not sure how using a WiFi SSID or other statement that includes trademarked terms (especially those that have cultural roots separate from the trademarks) could be an infringement unless the source is actually selling or marketing a competing product.

[0] https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement

What part of "likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake about the source of the goods and/or services" isn't clear to you? McDonalds and Starbucks both provide wi-fi as an enticement for their customers not as a public service. Confusing people as to the origin of the "McDonalds WiFi" SSID pretty clearly fits within that definition. Then there's the "tortious interference" angle, and the fact that they don't have to win any kind of suit to make your life miserable. If you sell a product that uses their trademark to degrade the value of a service they provide, that's more than enough for them to get you into court.

Do you like making lawyers (on both sides) rich? Or tying up courts so they can't hear cases with more merit? Because even if you win, those are the outcomes. Vexatious litigation is a real thing, and practically impossible to prosecute. It can happen to you. The real world doesn't care about your notions of abstract justice, and it's not dystopian to recognize that. If anything, it's your utopian view that's "wonderful" (i.e. appealing but unrealistic) here.

Is there a law regarding which names you can't use for hotspots/APs?

Even if there is, I doubt anyone will go after that unless the "attacker" involves some serious crime with that combined.

Attacking innocent people with rogue SSIDs would be definitely wrong, but if done only to trick Google it would be a fun experiment - and they deserve it (maybe not for this particular change but as a company in general).

It doesn't have to be a case they can win to be extremely troublesome for you (though they probably could win if their trademark is embedded in your code). Unless you can afford to make your own lawyers rich, it's a bit unwise to go "I dare you" to large US companies. Better to ship something less incriminating, and leave the spicier suggestions for anonymous comments on web forums.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever been sued over their SSID?

I have a neighbor whose SSID is itHurtsWhenIP. I've always liked that.

Good question. I'd be surprised if those companies would go after an individual over an "infringing" SSID, but if you sold a product using them that would be a different matter. An open-source project would probably fall somewhere in between.

Yes.

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/29/libel-by-wifi-network-n...

Sure, it was defamation rather than copyright, but it certainly puts the lie to a certain other commenter who seems to think that if he personally can't find it on Google then it must not exist.

We had one on our street called FuckOffAndGetYourOwn which I always liked

Maybe change it up a bit? :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djI_ret3S9g

Seems like so few people would a actually do this they would fly under the radar, though it’s good to be aware of potential problems.

If this was codified into a repo, I'd absolutely deploy one or two of my own.

I have regarded the entire Google Maps dev team with utter contempt since they first combined maps and navigation into one app, thereby preventing you from using both at the same time.

At this point I'd rather use a paper map then let Google wardrive using my phone 24 hours a day.

My biggest pet peeve is that when you search for something, your starred places disappear.

Hey, I'm actually trying to see if this is close to somewhere I go! What's the closest post office to my daughter's school? Oh, wait, where'd the school go? Insane.

I don't understand this at all. If they're both in the same app, then aren't you using them both every time you're using it? What does it mean to navigate without using a map?

My partner and I will be driving and my partner will point to a funny looking building and say, "Whats that?". To answer the question I need to quit navigation to view the map. You can't "browse" the map while in navigation.

You could just use another application such as Windy Maps to answer that.

Can't you just open Google Maps in the browser? Just tried and it works fine. (Firefox did try to auto-open the app, but going back and trying again caused it to stay in the browser.)

If you use the Android Go version the maps and navigation are separate.

Maps Go is available for regular Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Try OSMAnd.

I started using it because it allows you to download huge areas as vector maps for offline use. But I find myself slowly using it more and more. The only things missing that keep me using gmaps are search, reviews / places, and directions that factor traffic (not a biggie tbh). However, I've been playing with mapbox and, without any prior experience whatsoever got a traffic overlay working within a few hours with a free account. I believe they provide the other parts (search, routing & places) too, I just need to figure out how to plumb them in.

I have tried a ton of map apps and IMO OSMAnd has all the pieces to be a serious competitior, at least for technical folks, with just a little bit of commercialization... The gmaps moat is not as deep or as wide as it seems.

If you are an OSMAnd dev reading this, I will happily pay a monthly fee for this stuff if provided as a cost plus package... I get a ton of value out of the app already, already pay for it and hate Google maps more with every passing day.

I love OSMAnd too and used it in places where Google Maps was subpar, e.g. in India or places in the middle east. But also all over Europe when roaming data was still expensive and recently when I crossed Canada east to west by car. The benefit of the map data coming from the open street map community paid off massively where there was little commercial interest for Google to map the area in detail.

I also love that you can edit and add POIs to OSM right from within OSMAnd.

On a side note: If you like to improve details of OSM, have a look at Street Complete, a gameified app to add details of your area to OSM. One of the tasks is to check/provide opening hours of nearby facilities.

I use it for cycling, but honestly it's pretty frustrating. Searching for Japanese place names is pretty difficult, and since most place names are only listed in the local language but its TTS can only handle one language at a time I have to choose between "turn right onto " and "右に回って、明治通り", whereas Google will give me "turn right onto Meiji-doori".

It doesn't help that I'm stuck on an old version for the "turn on screen when approaching a turn" function, which is actually Google's problem but still frustrating.

Definitely frustrating. I wonder how hard it'd be to add.

The English TTS is not great compared with anything else I've tried, but it's serviceable

I find Windy Maps feels more polished, and quicker at routing. It's cycling routing seems to work better for me than Google maps too. I just wish it could load in GPX files like OsmAnd can.

Wow, Windy Maps is _beautiful_. Yes, goes to show that OSMAnd has lots of warts but it's extremely featureful.

With OSMAnd you have to make a significant investment in UI customization. It won't really get prettier but it will start to fit you better than anything else.

They've always been coercive. You've never been able to use GPS passively without Play Services phoning your location home to Google, since the earliest days of Android. They would pop up a confirmation box asking you to agree to data collection, and if you declined, then GPS would remain off. It was a major influence in my decision to never, ever run a Googled Android on my phone. I just can't trust any company with that level of invasive surveillance. It's my line in the sand.

I don't like this being forced on you, but who the hell cares about wifi/bt SSID sniffing? What's so bad about collecting it?

You are literally broadcasting it yourself and on most devices you can't even turn broadcasting off anymore.

On a localised basis, it is perhaps not so bad, however at a higher level, it allows you to piece together a huge amount of info, including grouping members of households etc.

Honestly, it's not a great piece of info to be leaking, if you value your privacy.

> grouping members of households

How does GPS location not achieve same..?

That requires processing the data in ways that would have to be disclosed as per law.

That only requires writing an apology for a bug after processing the data in this ways was found to be undisclosed, and then disclosing it with no opt-out.

Or alternatively, process the data anyway, make tens of billions of dollars from it, and pay a 2 billion dollar fine if the regulators find out.

The fine is just another cost of doing business ;)

My access points are inaccessible to the public. You would have to trespass deep into my property. No one has any business knowing anything about my network or devices here.

My access points are inaccessible to the public. You would have to trespass deep into my property.

Unfortunately you are up against trillion dollar corporations who think the world is their little model, active misinformation from them, blatant bribery of elected officials leading to an engineered lack of government oversight, a completely clueless population, and an exponentially increasing technical capability of surveillance.

so nobody will ever sniff them then. This is not an answer to the question.

I'd prefer the combo of ssid, password and location to not all be known to the same single party.

Yeah, an SSID is meant to be a publicly available address. You can always hide them if you want.

Could you imagine the outrage if people found out Google was collecting and storing everyone's home address?

So how about OsmAnd[0] ?

Supports fully offline mobile navigation.

[0] https://osmand.net/

Organic Maps is also cool. Forked from the then-OSS Maps.Me client, which, to be honest, I liked better than OsmAnd.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/

I wish OsmAnd all the best, but ever since the app was created, its map rendering performance has been stuck in the 2010s, no matter how much faster our devices have gotten since then.

There is justification for it for sure (see https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues?q=is%3Aissue+slow... for a few), and I love OSM out of principle, but as a product, it will remain my last resort until the user experience is tolerable.

If you have an older device, there is a is night and day difference between OsmAnd~ (the F-Droid rebuild) and Organic Maps (the latest maps.me fork). OsmAnd visibly stutters to load in new tiles whereas Organic Maps is perfectly smooth even when zooming quickly.

OsmAnd is still much more feature-rich, though, so it's worth using if you have a more powerful device. Although i do worry about the battery impact.

I want to switch to osmand and I've installed it and Google Maps, but I've yet to be able to use osmand full time. mostly because it never seems to find a full and navigate to it properly.

The best way I've been able to use it is typing the address's postcode and then finally look for the number or building like a barbarian, but even that doesn't always bring up the result.

OsmAnd does much better navigation than Organic Maps, but the interface is much clunkier. Has a lot of other features too, so good to have both.

We like OsmAnd+ a lot, we use Maps too but always keep OsmAnd+ loaded in case we need it. It does use a lot of storage but it's worth it.

What are some reliable alternatives for both iOS and Android? I'm unsure how are Apple Maps, but they were hideous a while back for Eastern Europe at least.

OsmAnd: https://osmand.net/ - open source, offline maps. Really great for outdoor sports, and has profiles for running, biking, skiing, etc, way better than Google Maps for that. Driving routes often give the same route as Google Maps for me. Some things are better on Google Maps though, such as live traffic and address lookup, so it depends what you want to use it for.

And supports off-line navigation IIRC.

There are still places in the world where Apple Maps isn't great, but for 90% of people they're now as good for navigation, if not better (since they've built a data gathering operation).

Last year I used Apple Maps for a 34,000 mile road trip. No significant issues.

I switched to Apple Maps a couple years ago and was also pleasantly surprised how much it has improved.

In the browser, you can effectively get Apple Maps through DuckDuckGo, as their map service is built on it. There is no meaningful way to get Apple Maps navigation on Android though, and I predict it will stay that way unless Apple decides to turn it into a paid service or changes their stance on selling user data.

I've switched to Apple Maps and it's been an improvement. Much better UI on CarPlay (subjective, but I find it to be easier to quickly read/decipher while driving). Still missing the "Yelp" part of Google Maps, there's not as much of a community there.

The big pain point imo is that apple maps doesn't crawl for local business information as well as google. Many local businesses in LA do not show up on apple maps but have a presence on google maps. I wonder why apple maps engineers don't just crawl google maps and steal this data from them, I'm sure google would do the same.

Woah. That’s quite the road trip! What was it?

That's nearly 1.5 times around the globe.

For integrity, I wish Apple Maps available on web.

I've used Apple Maps for a while now and haven't noticed any real difference in from when I used to use Google Maps. So for me: Google Maps and Apple Maps are utterly interchangeable.

Same here - Apple Maps in New Zealand works just fine.

When that's the case Apple Maps would be a better choice as it doesn't try to suck all your privacy into its ad ecosystem.

HERE WeGo[0] works remarkably well here in the north of Africa, much better than google maps or TomTom.

[0] https://wego.here.com/

Watch out, Here Maps has the Facebook SDK malware embedded in it that will call home to Zuck on every app launch (at least) and send a device fingerprint and persistent identifier.

Does not work on Android Auto, sadly.

And they did a rewrite a short while back and it's not as good. I used to love it, but not so much anymore.

Am hoping for Android Auto support to come to Organic Maps.

It's funny that their representation of Japan is just an empty island with a few highways on it. Does it work better if you're there?

Apple Maps was terrible and Google was ok.

Fast forward a few years and Apple Maps is now ok (not super but definitely usable) and Google Maps tried to kill me a few times by guiding me to go opposite direction into a highway or into buildings or other wrong directions. The data is super inaccurate on Google Maps.

In Apple Maps it at least shows no road instead of generating roads with completely wrong data.

(I live in Turkey, YMMV)

https://organicmaps.app/ for iOS and Android. It's a fork of maps.me codebase. Maps.me added a crypto wallet and removed features.

I have always detested Google and am a longtime Apple user. I use Maps exclusively and like it perfectly well. Occasionally there is an update that makes it a bit dumber but, that always goes away.

It's very difficult imagine the marginal benefit of a different app that would overcome their strong brand commitment to privacy for me.

Not as reliable as those but getting there (and with lifetime updates): https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 and https://pine64.org/pinephone.

I use Apple Maps in Northern New England (Maine, NH, Vermont, Eastern Canada) and it's actually a little better than Google here in my experience. Apple Maps also fully supports no tracking and a better offline mode IMO. If you are on iOS and in a location that Apple supports I'd highly recommend it.

Apple Maps has an offline mode?

I've been using Maps.me, it has great mapping material (OSM) and the navigation is decent. Been using it in the Caribbeans, GMaps and AMaps barely have street names there.

Organic Maps is the open source fork of Maps.me. It's very similar, but better maintained, and has less shady stuff

Organic maps seems good, and I did take it for a test navigation drive. Not sure how it is long-term though.

Mapbox, HERE Maps, TomTom, MapQuest etc.

I use here, they are pretty great

This is your monthly reminder that Google absolutely does not care about your or anyone else's privacy. They only care about building a higher resolution view of the little ant farm of humanity that they think they own.

> Google has now drawn a line in the sand. Give us all your local SSIDs, local bluetooth connections, with likely even more detail, or they now refuse to allow you to use Maps to navigate.

Oh, that's not the half of it. If GLS's data harvesting practices (including its completely inadequate "anonymization" methods) were made public, you'd realize that your phone is uploading literally everything that could possibly be related to location tracking to Google as often as possible, including sensor traces accurate enough to locate you to less than a meter, what floor of a building you are on, etc.

>If GLS's data harvesting practices were made public

are you speculating, or sharing a comment of something you know to be true? \

I'd like to know more about your last paragraph. Do you have any sources?

I'm pretty sure this is to improve the crowd-sourced database of WIFI AP's.

Google was involved with Skyhook for a while and there's no reason to think they stopped using similar tech. It's really that simple: war drive to build a map of AP to location, remove any that seem to move around (ie trains), and then you can use the database to map an AP sighting to location in the client. Trilateration on signal strength for extra points.

Source: worked with them.

Ref: https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/court-of-appeals/...

> Of course, device location is on, but it's only for GPS, and google so badly wants that (apparently) vital, and sweet wifi + bluetooth + cell tracking data.

I'd believe this has been made to reduce the number of "Maps takes soooo long to acquire my position on the map / can't find me when I'm in a building" complaints. A WiFi scan will be very quick (to the tune of 1-5s) to establish rough coordinates, a GPS TTFF can take minutes or be outright impossible.

On the other hand, those "rough coordinates" you get from a WiFi scan may be hundreds of miles away from your actual location. WiFi networks move.

For example, I have a 4G hotspot with a proper antenna for areas with poor reception. While traveling to a campground the location remains accurate so long as I'm using Maps for navigation (with GPS). Shortly after I arrive and activate my hotspot, however, my phone starts reporting that I'm at the last place I stayed. And it generally keeps doing that for several days (until I'm about ready to leave) before their database finally updates. If I force a GPS fix—which takes longer due to the bad initial guess—it shows the right place for a while and then reverts once GPS is no longer active. What I want is for it to ignore all the mobile hotspots around me[0] and just use GPS and fixed sources such as cell towers. An out-of-date GPS fix would be better than its guess based on WiFi scanning, but Maps no longer supports navigation without what they laughably refer to as "Google Location Accuracy" enabled. There isn't even an option to include the more reliable sources such as cellular service and local sensors (inertial navigation) while excluding WiFi.

[0] Yes, I know I could rename the hotspot to use some ugly suffix or other ("_no_map", I think?) to avoid it being recorded in the database. That doesn't help with all the other mobile hotspots I don't control.

Rather than assume malice, a more charitable and entirely plausible interpretation is that the Google Maps team simply does not test this configuration. A recent change to Google Maps or Android unknowingly broke it, akin to genetic drift. All phones collect MAC addresses from nearby WiFi devices to speed up the initial GPS satellite fix. Apple does this too.

How much of your information does Google want? MORE!

This is a big reason why I carry a Graphene OS phone... and searched eBay for a Garmin GPS -- that cannot phone home! -- for my car.

I actually picked up a mint Garmin from a thrift store for $10 for this reason. I always thought it was just me, I would turn GPS on and open maps on my LG v20, but would still get prompted about location accuracy every time. I upgraded to a Moto One 5g and the verbiage is different enough that I was confused into approving because it seemed to imply maps just wanted to turn GPS on (even though I already turned GPS on), upon later checking, Google Location Accuracy was enabled.

All information, and people are giving it to them for free. There is billions in dollar of profit from selling peoples data and the user gets nothing of that.

I still remember filling out my Facebook profile back when it was very new (after it was open to everyone but before it even had the timeline) and I'm just flabbergasted at how much information I was willing to fork over as a naïve child presented with a grid of form fields to fill out. crazy to see how it's only got more ridiculous over time. now Snapchat (which I'm about to convince my fiancée to uninstall so neither of us uses it anymore) is giving me notifications telling me about friends and family that I should add as friends, despite me never giving the app access to my contacts! I wish I could go back in time and convince my younger self about how bad things were going to get and why I should minimize my online footprint as much as possible. well, cat's out of the bag now...

Just to remind you, the user get the whole functionality of the app. That's the trade-off.

To be fair, the user is getting a pretty amazing map/gps program.

It it worth it? Are they completely upfront about the data they’re harvesting?

You can opt out. Stand alone gps is still available. Open Street maps is an amazing open source program too.

My car has a 2010 gps. It works. It’s not great but it’s gets you close. In some ways I miss my old Tom Tom. It had the mr. T voice yelling at me where to go.

Google Maps is a pretty big application. Have you considered that this might have been a mistake? Refactoring legacy codebases isn't always without regressions.

If you file a bug report (especially if there are a bunch of others filing them) then the people in charge of this stuff won't be able to claim they didn't know about it.

Open maps > help and feedback > send feedback

And remember, Every good bug report needs exactly three things:

1) Steps to reproduce, 2) What you expected to see, and 3) What you saw instead

Has anyone else found google maps will turn your position icon into a pop up saying “accuracy: low, tap to improve”? It is the most obnoxious UI “feature” I’ve seen in maps (one of many I suppose). When you click on it, it wants you to take photos of the street around you to improve accuracy! What bullshit. No, google, I am not going to give you free streetview photos because you are lying about location accuracy.

It isn't about generating "free streetview photos" but actually about matching the imagery around you to the database of Street View photos they already have. If there is no match, it isn't going to take your photos and keep them... it has no accurate idea of where you are.

The service is called Live View and is exceptionally useful (and optional) if you are in a foreign country where you are unfamiliar with street signs or in an urban canyon.

Location accuracy challenges aren't a conspiracy, it can be very difficult to generate at cold start (see numerous other comments about how GPS can take a while to locate accurately but fused signals from other sources can help turn that into 1-2s)

I guess this is good to know. But doesn’t fit well with my experience with it. I am getting the pop-up while living in a first world city. Google maps is allowed to use wifi to help find me. And the dot representing my location is invariably in the correct spot. Yet, the pop-up still shows. Forgive me my suspicion since there is no practical reason why I need to improve my location accuracy when it is already very accurate.

Well, why it pops up I can't really speak to (could easily be a product manager trying to boost engagement), but what it does is more of what I'm familiar with

I've been using Here maps since it was Nokia Maps, and apart from recommendations on local businesses I haven't missed anything.

I've had some issues lately, but after a reboot it seems to work again.

Unless maybe if you need the car navigation, google maps seems to work well as a progressive web app (and since it's sandboxed by the browser, it can only use the actual GPS).

On the last days I'm actually more pissed-off with the update of Google translate than Google maps.

I regret the last time I let it auto-update: that update had brought lots of junk UI and the annoying and equally useless "covid" reminder at the bottom. Since then I've disabled the auto-updates. If one day it refuses to work, I guess I'll just find some OSM-based alternative.

I just tried to disable every "augmented navigation" and use GPS only.

Everything works, it's just a bit more annoying because it takes more time to get the location. If I press the "current location" button before that I'm prompted to activate augmented location, if I wait a bit google maps successfully finds my position on the map.

Trying to navigate brings the annoying pop-up again (every time I close/open the screen, actually), but clicking OK and then reverting manually keeps the navigation open.

I live in Europe, so that might be a reason for the difference, anyway I can suggest OpenStreetMaps as a good alternative (superior to gmaps at times too).

What is the value of sniffing the local ssids? As far as I know it is just to get a better and faster lock on location (sometimes GPS signals are weak) and therefore give better navigation. Does anyone know of some other purpose?

My understanding is that they keep a record of SSID’s and their GPS-mapped location to know your exact location when you connect.

Google has done really dark stuff with WiFi networks before, like when it came out that their StreetView cars were wardriving and intercepting data: https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

> The design document showed that, in addition to collecting data that Google could use to map the location of wireless access points, Engineer Doe intended to collect, store, and analyze payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks

At this point, I’m skeptical of any data I provide Google; they are masterminds at combining multiple points of data into something useful.

  This has a dual purpose. 
  From your perspective, that's true. It gives a better and faster lock on location.
  But at the same time, it associate the WIFI with a location with the accuracy of a GPS.
  So when you go into your laptop which has no GPS, the WiFi which you connect now has a real location association with it.
  Presto. Now Google can track your real location on your laptop and any other WiFi enabled device.

To serve ads. They can tell a business a consumer was withing X distance if your establishment. We can show them an advertisement in google maps the next time they are near by if you gladly pay us

GPS is only so accurate on phones by itself. I assume harvesting SSIDs helps a lot for knowing specifically which stores you're shopping at in a dense area with weak GPS signal. It's very accurate with it's "How did you like visiting _____?" notifications and if you look at your location history I think it also accurately labels stores well.

Obviously knowing every store you visit is very useful advertising data.

Back when I was working on location for Google Maps navigation, we explicitly disabled the wifi-based location service, because it was less accurate, and occasionally started giving locations from several seconds ago.

So to me it's kind of a baffling decision.

GPS is pretty battery intensive.

Your phone is already gathering a list of every SSID it touches every second. If Google can eliminate the need to use GPS to confirm that you are sitting at your desk, it can eliminate a bunch of needless GPS calculations.

I'm curious as well. Who out there is even using open wifi without at least a captive portal? What benefit to Google is there to just collect SSIDs?

To know where you are even with GPS off.

I haven't lived in the US in a long while, but recently drove 3,500km here and was surprised to hear Google Maps say things like "Turn left at the McDonalds". We all knew this was coming one day.

Is it surprising?

When you give directions to a human you generally use landmarks or businesses to express where you should make a turn, so why wouldn't Google if that helps more than "...in 300m turn left"

Honestly Google, what's wrong with you? I'm done. I'm done paying for services only to be the product. The behaviour I've seen this year alone is enough for me to give in and look at every single other choice.

Can I run an android without google magic on it - meaning the apps I need? I'm sure going to find out on a rooted phone. I'm shocked, but I'll actually be embracing trying an iphone, a pinephone - hell pretty much everything now. At least Apple is reasonably honest about their evil. I might be able to suck that up.

I don't really get what the objection is here, if you're using maps with GPS, Google has your location, adding precision to that helps you more than it helps them, they don't need sub-metre precision to know what store you were in, but your navigation prompts to switch lanes in a more timely manner becomes possible/more accurate with this, especially in cities where buildings mess with satellite signals.

This seems like hating Google because it's Google, not because this particular action merits any hate at all

Can confirm this behavior. While driving home yesterday the usual "enable Google location services" appeared on Google Maps after starting navigation mode, but if I dismissed it, it exited navigation mode.

Funny thing is that if I didn't dismiss it and left the popup there, I could see behind it that the navigation worked as usual.

I don't doubt that Google has changed their policy, but is there any official confirmation of this somewhere? I tried a bunch of searches but couldn't confirm. Also, does anyone know how this might affect the use of an external GPS connected with Bluetooth?

I occasionally use OsmAnd+ by picking up my destination from GMaps. It works nicely (I like the offline option it provides). The one drawback is perhaps the traffic data, but otherwise it's really good with a good choice of different map types.

osmand also lets you start a navigation from a shortcut as well which is pretty neat. i use tasker (on android) and then add the tasker shortcuts to zone launcher so i just need to swipe from the side of the screen to access them.

just set the %lat and %lon variables to whatever and then add this to the send intent in tasker:

action: android.intent.action.VIEW

data: osmand.api://navigate?dest_lat=%lat&dest_lon=%lon&profile=car&force=1

extra: Package.net.osmand

"Now, enter a new update, I can no longer navigate with Google Maps, unless full location tracking is on."

Sounds like accepting the new update does not always mean there is an improvement for the user, or the negatives may outweigh the positives.

Wifi? Ha! Google Maps has prompted me to turn on my camera for improved location accuracy a couple of times.

And I'm not sure why switching map apps will really help long term. Can't Google just bake in WiFi WAR driving into the location services API?

FYI that uses their Live View to look at building and street view around you to better orient you. Kind of matches what you photo with what they know and orients you. Incredibly useful in places like Japan where you don’t have many readable street signs or dense urban canyons.

It has nothing to do with some crazy nefarious google plot.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wifi-camera-sees-through-wal...

I've been using OsmanAnd from f-droid and have been somewhat satisfied.

Is it the "Precise location" switch? I just checked, every application on my phone that requires location, does not work unless "Precise location" switch is ON.

How about using the mobile website maps.google.com, would that work?

Google = Garbage. I don't recommend using any of their services. For a maps replacement, I'd recommend OsmAnd or Magic Earth - both available on f-droid.

Unfortunately openstreetmaps suck comparing to Gmaps, it's same problem all again: Google product sucks but it's the best option on the market.

For me, the line was drawn when they forced users to migrate to Google workspace. Looking to de-couple my life with Google.

What is the best alternative to google maps on my iphone that doesn't sell/store my location data?

Genius Map for iOS iPhone is truly one OFFLINE map.

You download the map, turn off WiFi AND cellular, and enjoy your GPS map.

That explains why everytime I turn it off, it later turns on automatically. So shady.

For a while now, Google Maps has entered end stage monetization mode.

I am now using Apple Maps.

Wow yeah it exits if I click no thanks. I've always kept scanning off.

I use Magic Earth. It's not as good but it doesn't spy on me.

I don’t understand the “want privacy” but “use android” combo.

HERE Maps is better than Organic Maps if you need routing.

The answer is the same for why google refuses (and silently reverted) patches removing or improving privacy for things like referer(sic) headers in chrome: ad revenue.

Learn about "dooh" and POI conversion etc, and you will figure out why google need your phone to be wifi-scanning all the time.

It needs to find a store wifi beacon that pays them if they "convert" you, i.e. enter the store after seeing an ad to enter the store.

Sansung and apple are into this too. It's all part of "providing services in your best interest that you have signed for" in gdpr and ccpa language.

EU user here, deleted the App, lol

> I've been using Google Maps a long time

Sunk cost didn't bother me when I uninstalled Google Maps from my phone. Good riddance.

I've been using Waze this whole time

Waze is owned by google.

I always liked Waze but I don't like Google. I've been blocking as many Google domains as possible but still kept some unblocked just to use Waze (and YouTube). Google changed something, Waze stopped working, I switched to Apple Maps. No regrets.

Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.") may well apply here. It could just be a bug.

Google has proven so many times they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, bringing up Hanlon's razor is a bad joke at this point.

Unfortunately I can't find the story of that Mozilla developer that recounted how many times Google introduced "bugs" that only harmed Firefox, and how long it took them to realize this was malicious due to applying Hanlon's razor.

The fact is, if your opponent is even moderately intelligent, Hanlon's razor guarantees to keep you blind to their intentions.

Google has been explicitly conditioning access to some features on users agreeing to share data [0]. This is perfectly in line with that strategy. Bugs which happen to work out that way aren't bugs.

[0] https://bgr.com/tech/google-maps-forces-you-to-share-locatio...

Sure. But the actor gains something valuable from this, so it would be a very convenient bug.

I think this time Occam's razor works just fine ;-)

I sense op feels entitled to use free Google services and dictate how their product should work.

There are many arguments why using GPS alone is both battery intensive and also more fragile as it won't work near tall buildings, indoors and takes time to localize.

But at the end of the day if you don't trust some corporation you can stop using their free services when there are alternatives around.

There's Apple maps, Bing maps, Here maps, etc.

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