Hacker News Reader

Comment by callc | Hacker News Reader

I’m not Apple fanboy by any stretch, and I use Google maps, but Apple/Google maps are so valuable to my life, in the purist definition of valuable.

Directions (garmin), finding businesses and places (yellow pages), pinning places (like a big map on the wall with pins), trip time estimation, etc

I’m amazed by these extremely good products being free and mostly not covered in ads.

View on HN

> extremely good products being free

All the Apple ecosystem is subsidized by the price of the iPhones and Macs. There is no excuse for putting ads in such expensive products. And it's one reason why I'm moving away from Apple but that's another story.

What are you moving to? Windows is worse. Android phones have various issues with privacy or security. Linux products aren’t anywhere near ready (compare battery life between system76 and a MacBook for example). There just isn’t enough competition.

Android phones have fewer issues with privacy and security than Apple phones. You can install a fully offline mapping application on Android and have it be your default navigation app. Unlike with iOS (which tells Apple everything you've installed and run), you don't have to tell anyone you installed it, and also unlike iOS (which sends all GPS data to Apple), you don't have to tell anyone your GPS location. Apple marketing saying they care about privacy doesn't make it true.

What are good choices on phones? Pixel seems like it would leak things to Google. And as I understand Samsung phones have lots of preinstalled garbage.

You can install whatever you want on any Android phone from a reputable vendor, including Pixel phones. If you don't want to send data to Google (aside from OS updates), just replace any Google apps with non-Google apps.

Pixel with GrapheneOS if ypu want to take this seriously.

If you're in EU: Samsung falls under the DMA ruling, so you get to disable most superflous apps with a single checkbox at setup time.

The excuse is more free money. If millions of users rely on the Maps app for recommendations for food places and service centers, why shouldn't Apple exploit their position of power for financial gains?

Apple's ecosystem is the worst, except for all the others.

Moving to where?

Thinking of moving away from Apple as well.

I’m personally moving to the Fairphone with preinstalled e/os. A phone that I control, can repair, and has more privacy than the other OS is what I expected from Apple until the past decade where they decided that privacy was a joke.

It's simply not wise when everybody owns an iPhone and leaving iMessage will lead to social ostracization.

Although maps are very useful, for me it is the street view functionality that I find the most useful—especially if I am driving somewhere I have not been before. I can rehearse key points of the drive, see landmarks, exit numbers, and so on.

Google Maps has plenty of ads. All the square pins are paid placements.

despite the fact that a lot of the actual content is provided by users for free.

I don't see how this statement is related to my statement.

It's about the fact whether ads are justified or not. If users provide the content for free, there are less good reasons to justify adding ads there.

If I make an edit on Google Maps and Google stores and serves my edit to the world in perpetuity, what is the relative fraction of value at any time t after my edit?

The value comes from user-generated content, just like on Instagram—individual posts may not matter, but their collective contribution is what creates value.

You could really say the same about OpenStreetMaps being laundered for revenue.

> I’m amazed by these extremely good products being free and mostly not covered in ads.

Probably because people don't click on ads while using Apple/Google maps to drive somewhere. The app has one job: give me directions. I'm not interested in enshitification of these products.

Plus, they already gather lots of data about you, which is more valuable than showing ads.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com