The next headline will read, OpenStreetMaps gains users as Apple adds ads to maps.
After that, Apple would ban OSM apps from their store.
I could totally see this happen.
Not in a direct manner, but something about “OSM not living up to Apple’s high standards of privacy” or similar strategy.
why would they do that when Google Maps and Waze are already bigger competitors?
Waze is now also Google. Apple can and does extract/extort lots rent/ransom from Google. OSM doesn’t have the pockets. They, like lots of FOSS, undermine the whole scheme.
I wish it were good enough to be a viable alternative but it really isn’t.
If it’s missing data (such as locations) that is the issue, then you can update the map yourself and help others migrate at the same time. Every little bit helps, even if you don’t plan on fully moving over. I’ve done over a thousand changes to my local area and it’s actually more accurate than Google Maps in a lot of the commercial areas. You don’t have to do a thousand things though, like I said, every little bit helps.
Of course, it doesn’t help for outside of your area if you only do changes locally, but if enough people were willing to update the map, things could change.
Adding onto that, the app StreetComplete makes contributing stupidly easy. You basically get a bunch of quests generatef around you with missing or potentially outdated data that you can fill in by answering simple questions. Basically Pokemon Go, but infinitely more useful.
It’s not. It’s that the apps that use it have bad UIs and/or don’t support CarPlay. I haven’t found an alternative yet that was usable day to day.
To each their own I suppose. CoMaps is great for me, and I’ve never used carplay.
i recommend people get streetcomplete too so you can help build out osm! :)
Be realistic, not many people using apple devices (or any mobile devices tbh) are going to care or be intelligent enough to pull an open source alternative
won’t care? yeah probably. aren’t intelligent enough? that’s an insane generalization, knowledgeable about technology ≠ smart
I mean there might be a correlation who knows
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this is me as well. I’m the /only/ person in my town that updates data on OSM, and if you leave the area its just a void of nothingness. Outside of the automatic survey info that gets added its a ghosttown.
I want to like OSM but, between the crappy UI on all the apps, and the lack of information, I couldn’t do it.
There are a few around me, but I still find very outdated info and make a bunch of updates. A business left a year ago, and I finally got around to replacing it with the new business.
OSM is great, but it’s super spotting for anything with any amount of variance. It’s fantastic for trains and whatnot that rarely change, but for what most people use Apple Maps/Google Maps for, it’s largely useless.
What the heck did I (an iOS user) do to hurt you???
Bought from Apple. Voted with your wallet to support the walled garden infrastructure, gave up all of your software freedom for a shiny interface, blue bubbles, and some casual marketing.
And now that users like you realized how fucked you really are once Apple decides it’s time to extract more value from you, now you come crawling to the OSS community for a path out of the walled garden.
I mean, the community will still help you. But I can’t say I like Apple users after years upon years hearing them sing praises about the walled garden and worshipping the company’s abuses at every step of the way. At least we warned you about when this would happen, I suppose. Maybe some of them will realize their mistakes. I doubt it.
I had four android phones from three different manufacturers die in less than a year, one of them wouldn’t put out any updates after a year either. I went back to iPhone and it lasted for four years.
I’m not voting with my wallet, I’m picking the device that causes the least amount of headache and just fucking works when I need it to. I have to have one of these to keep my job.
Let me guess. You’re one of the people who compared a full priced iPhone to an entry level android and were upset that the $150-200 device wasn’t comparable? That’s like buying a chromebook and expecting it to have the same specs as a top of the line Macbook (you have to find a device that has bang for buck, not be a cheapskate)
Also, you can shop around and find a device with a support lifetime shown on their website. Google does it. Samsung does it. Oneplus does it. Even fucking Motorola does it. If you install something like PostmarketOS, you can get a support lifetime after the manufacturer stops caring as well. Or install something like GrapheneOS on the Pixel line that’s untethered from google. They have a support lifetime on their website too.
2 of them were Galaxy Notes and others were flagships as well. Quit being a douche.
Not to defend the antagonistic guy above, but you’re either extremely unlucky or not being fully truthful. I’ve had nothing but Samsung flagships for over a decade and have had literally zero issues besides minor annoyances, especially with the Note line the last 5-6 years. iPhones aren’t built poorly, so I won’t rag on them. But to use your purely anecdotal evidence to declare Apple as offering a superior quality phone to all Android vendors, it feels dishonest as fuck.
Oneplus
lol now we know you’re full of shit.
You got me, I never used a Oneplus phone. I have used Samsung, Pixel, and Motorola phones in the past though, (Note 9, S23, Pixel 9, Moto G5 and G6), and can confirm their support lifetimes were accurate. (I sold my S23 to buy a Pixel 9 to install GrapheneOS).
I don’t think you people fully grasp how insufferably dumb you seem with these opinions.
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GrapheneOS and PostmarketOS are independently developed forks, not a “hacked android rom” (I guess you’re saying that to demonize the projects and imply ineptitude?), and have hardware support lists along with expected security support lifetimes if you’re willing to look.
Also, as I mentioned to the other commenter, every manufacturer should list the EOL support dates on their website. Just read that, and then pick accordingly. Or, and crazy thought here - look around for community reviews and recommendations! Don’t just go off Apple’s marketing! Wild concept!
(Also pinephone and Fairphone are two examples of Linux phones, but they aren’t super fleshed out yet so I wouldn’t recommend them either. Just find a device with a good EOL date and an unlocked bootloader.)
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and wasn’t an hacked android rom
It already has ads. Those businesses it highlights for no reason at all when you’re scrolling around.
yeah google doing this made me stop using it as much. still need to find a permanent alternative
Google does it so much I’ve had trouble finding favorite places because they’d rather show an ad that overlaps it.
I’m still using Google for looking up places but I stopped using it for car navigation because holy shit it sucks ass. Using waze now and it’s so much better. No idea of they’re FOSS tho
Waze is owned by Google. They bought it in 2014 (someone please correct the year, if I’m wrong). It’s not FOSS.
Waze was amazing. Sadly, a lot of features have been removed over the years, in an attempt to shift people from Waze to Google Maps. Waze in 2016 was better than the current version.
It really sucks that they were bought out by Google because for some reason waze’s navigation is 1000x better than gmaps, even tho they’re apparently from the same parent company
Most of the improvements seen for navigation in google maps (over the past decade) is due to them pulling the information and replicating a lot of features from Waze.
Waze and Google use the same data for traffic, obstructions and routing. They are both owned by Alphabet. I have no idea why you think Waze is better
I thought if people pay for things, like extreamly expensive Apple hardware, no ads can exist there? Must be confused or hearing things.
The business majors are about to learn an important lesson about open source.
Are they though? The top valued companies in the world are balls-deep in advertising and data collection.
Those companies need people to believe they don’t have a choice present them with a choice and watch the ad people freak the fuck out.
Lol, lmao even.
You have unrealistic views of the common person’s technical acumen if you think this is going to have an impact of more than fraction of a percent, if that.
They don’t need to know the technical side of it to understand “this is cheaper, it doesn’t have ads plastered everywhere”
They also don’t need to know the technical side of it to say ‘wow, this app doesn’t work and/or it’s out of date’ to close it and go back to something that works/fits their use case, even if it has ads.
I’ve tried to get people to use FOSS alternatives, but most would rather it work with no effort and deal with a lesser experience than having to fight with it to make it do what the other app does natively.
If you’re not paying, you’re the product. If you’re paying, you may still be the product.
Open source is the exception, and it’s important to note that.
Now you may be thinking “well duh”, but I’ve seen plenty of people, even fairly techy people, refuse to use good FOSS software because they think they’re being monetised somehow and that because there’s no ads, it must be from secret data theft.
and sometimes you don’t pay and aren’t the product, yay open source!
Enshitification isn’t a problem of people being bad at buying stuff.
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This isn’t Reddit. No need to be unnecessarily abrasive.
Oh fuck dude. You made coffee come out my nose.
Who said that?
It was generally believed about a year ago that ads would only show up in free products, like Google search, or whatever.
Now we see them in cars, Apple software and all sorts of very expensive products.
Because its never enough ads.
It was generally believed about a year ago that ads would only show up in free products
It definitely was not lol. Ads have been in paid products for literal decades by this point.
You’re not going to be seeing an ad for plane tickets on the map - if you search for “burgers” you might get an ad for Burger King show up as a sponsored result at the top. That’s it, it’s just ads for companies that are relevant to what you searched for in the app.
Maybe in some products but not a lot. We didnt have ads in Netflix, we didnt have ads in cars, we didnt have ads in tv software and so on. You probably know this.
I dont see the point of pretending its not getting worse. A lot worse.
Cable tv has literally had ads for decades. Magazines have had ads for as long as they existed.
What world have you been living in?
Sure those things had ads, but you are seemingly ignoring the new places that have ads now.
But I dont care really if you see it or not. :)
That’s a different story. You said that up until a year ago paid products didn’t have ads. That’s demonstrably false, we have decades of evidence to prove so.
Use OpenStreetMaps
Yeah I know it could be incomplete at times but its our job as a community to improve it if we want “free” software
But, but I want my stuff to work perfectly without me putting any effort or paying monies 😭
Try CoMaps, it works great (as long as the area is mapped in OSM)
That’s the dumb thing. I’m always willing to concede that you need to make things as smooth and seamless for your users as possible, but let’s get away from this culture of no stakes investment. Let’s work together to buy in.
remember when apple didn’t have ads because they were premium?
CoMaps is a nice offline alternitive. Not perfect,but it respects privacy
to be clear this isn’t a privacy issue. they are allowing companies to pay to be featured more prominently in the app.
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Sure, but one can argue that data is being exchanged for ads.
Regardless, CoMaps is still a solid offline app that is being worked on. I wish we had a better version of Google or Apple maps without the bloat
Might give it a spin, currently using Organic Maps.
It was forked off if Organic Maps because if a difference of philosophy. Organic Maps wanted to add more proprietary components to their app.
So you overpay them for crappy iPhone and have to pay them again by watching ads?
Don’t forget web users. Duck duck go uses Apple Maps.
I guess DuckDuck pays them, so Duck users would be spared of the ads?
I love how everyone is calling Apple users dumb here when Google has been doing the same thing for longer and both platforms let you install other map apps.
Yes, but apple has been charging double the price for their products on the basis of ‘privacy’ and ‘premiumness’
So I’m actually a moderately tech-savvy individual. Software engineer, been using Linux since Karmic Koala (of course I’ve used many other distros since then, including Gentoo for a few years and now I’m using TumbleWeed on one computer and NixOS on another). I can even figure out how a printer works, believe it or not.
I just hate this whole “only stupid people who don’t know about tech buy iPhones” rhetoric.
Samsung and Google have caught up in prices. I guess only Google is a tiny bit cheaper, Samsung is definitely right up there with Apple.
OnePlus was a good option if you wanted a cheaper flagship, but they both 1) ruined their OS and 2) went more expensive.
I actually bought an iPhone for 4 primary reasons:
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Lightning port is easier to clean out than USB-C and I get a LOT of pocket lint for some reason.
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Carplay used the entire screen in my S205 whereas Android Auto had the Android Auto logo on like 1/3 of the screen.
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Back when I did it, Apple was the only one giving 5-6 years of major OS upgrades to their old phones and OnePlus only gave me 3, lagging far behind AOSP and the whole OxygenOS to ColorOS switch RUINED the phone for me. I did use a custom ROM for a while before that, but my bank app stopped working with that regardless of whatever I did, so I switched to stock ROM and then upgraded to ColorOS and the phone became nearly unusable. It was 3 years old (the model, anyway; the phone in question was 2 years old). Every single one of my iPhone using friends said that never has a major OS upgrade inconvenienced them in any way.
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I just felt like I don’t have time to play with custom ROMs and stuff anymore and since I don’t, I might as well go with the option that works great out of the box, rather than the one that I can infinitely customize to my liking.
Now, this whole issue: It’s not actually using user data AFAIK, so there are no privacy implications in this specific instance IMO. They just allow companies to pay to show up near the top in Maps. Not a move I’m a fan of, but I’m assuming Google has been doing this for a decade or 2 at least.
Does that mean I trust Apple? Fuck no. They’re still a for-profit corporation. They still want to make as much profit as possible.
You aren’t crazy. I’ve switched back and forth and currently have an iPhone, but currently primarily use a Thinkpad with a nice minimal Sway-based Alpine Linux desktop and a handful of Debian and 'BSDs kicking around on various machines. There are dozens of us!
Apple phones eeks out current Google options for privacy, security, minimalism, and service life, IMHO, but barely, and other people will argue the other way - I don’t care. When there is a legit Linux phone option, I’ll probably move then. I just try to use a phone as little as possible in my interaction with technology.
I don’t actually regard them as a healthy form-factor for technology. A keyboard and 14’ screen is more conducive to creating things or fulsomeness discussion in written form. Depending on the content, they are better for consuming text content (though eReaders are better for some content), and for multi-media consumption, large screens like TVs are better for the eyes.
My NixOS machine is a Thinkpad too! Tumbleweed runs on the gaming desktop. I can tinker with it (and in fact this is the machine that used to run Gentoo - I tried to get the absolute maximum performance in games lol), it’s fine. But my phone, I just want to get out of my way. It should do the things a phone does and do them reliably and with a long service life. Similar reason why I actually like having a Macbook around (though I don’t have one right now). It’s my always-works, no-tinkering machine with great performance and battery life, that I use for work.
My primary use cases for the phone are messaging, doomscrolling and banking. Heavily customizable Android offers me no advantage here. I haven’t changed most default settings on iOS either - only switched to SwiftKey because while I hate giving Microsoft any data, it’s the only keyboard I can use with ease, as I’ve been using it for over a decade (I used to download the pro version APK off some APK site back when the Pro version was separate, that’s how long I’ve been using it).
There is a singular thing I miss from Android of course. Ability to install apps not blessed by Apple/Google. When Google kills that off, then I will see no advantage in Android. Either way, I’m also holding out for a proper Linux phone option. Until then it’s going to be iOS unless they fuck something up real bad and I take the time out of my life to move to GrapheneOS.
im tech savvy, but i also want to participate in society, so i just buy the best budget android phone i can afford. thats it. all i use are lemmy, my bank, and my phone to pay, and then browse for research
I used to do budget Androids but they got so slow in just a year or two. Mostly I blame eMMC degradation but there’s also a massive difference in processing power between the high and low end.
I wanted something to last me multiple years so I got a Oneplus 7 Pro. That got slow because they ruined their OS so I gave up and went iPhone. No complaints so far.
iPhones are nice but their price tag ain’t. I have a moto G stylus 5G 2025 and it’s working great. 400 bucks and works like a flagship for my uses.
The Moto G I had a while ago was great actually. It only lasted a bit over 2 years though. Mine was the second gen. After that, I had two cheapo Chinese phones and then I started moving upmarket because of my sour experiences.
My Oneplus is still usable 6 years later, but only with a custom ROM and the battery life is shit. And the microphone is shot. If they’d kept OxygenOS and given longer support, I probably would have stayed with them to be honest. First 2 years of ownership were awesome.
i just buy whatever midrange i can afford (400 CAD ish) and call it a day.
And that’s worse for your data than iOS
I gave up on data privacy a long time ago. When you need to use banking apps and paying with my phone.
Then it’s up to how much one values having slightly better privacy over the rest. You can’t blame someone wanting the best of both worlds without too much effort but at a higher price
Besides, iOS
hashad a relatively good interface and the best chips and energy efficiency, one of the best cameras, but ofc lacks in other areasI don’t buy the fact that apple is more secure than android. but what do i know, i’m not a mobile OS developer.
I just hate this whole “only stupid people who don’t know about tech buy iPhones” rhetoric.
But that’s the audience Apple primarily attracts. I work in office IT, so it involves people doing stuff with smartphones and the amount of people not knowing basic shit how to use smartphones is staggering among iPhone users.
Me: “So here’s your VoIP app…” *user already disables microphone permission in the middle of me starting the introduction* “You need the microphone for the other party to hear you.”
Customer: “No, I don’t want to allow microphone access because of spying apps.”
Me: “Well, you wanted to use a VoIP app and without that permission, you cannot make a call.”
Customer: “You cannot expect me to know such things! I’m just a regular user!”
Samsung and Google have caught up in prices. I guess only Google is a tiny bit cheaper, Samsung is definitely right up there with Apple.
Only when you’re not able to pick a different model.
It’s not actually using user data AFAIK, so there are no privacy implications in this specific instance IMO.
Funny how Apple and their users keep repeating this but when one sets up an Apple device for the first time, the wizard asks so many “Can Apple use your data?” questions. There would be no need if Apple did nothing.
Obviously the answer applies when you reply no
They use the data for App Store recommendations and for insights
Many open source and privacy respecting services collect your data as well. Many distros or software have some sort of anonymous or pseudonymous data collection
Apple is not great in terms of privacy, but it’s a lot better than stock or mainstream Android when comparing usability and ease of use. Should you go the custom ROM route, then it can be the other way around, but I don’t believe most people criticizing iOS here run a custom ROM that improves their privacy
GrapheneOS helps for example, but you’re still tied to their proprietary Google play services that’s probably full of tracking, unless you’re one of the few that don’t use play services at all
MicroG is probably better for privacy and anonymity. Less secure, but that’s another issue.
based answer
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I don’t think Apple is “premium” since 5-10 years. Google pixel and Samsung galaxy series caught up
And bypassed. For the price of a Galaxy Fold you can buy an iPhone AND an iPad or even MacBook.
Let’s see what iPhone fold will cost….
and there is little difference in the flagships anyways. its just hype at that point.
As an iPhone owner and former pixel owner, pixels are more premium, cost less, work better, but depreciate faster. I look forward to the day I replace this with a pixel.
Both sides of the duopoly are shit. Some variances in the type of shit, but still.
Apple has really lost its identity.
Apple Silicon is really all that seperate them.
Eh. Even mediatek chips are getting to the point where they’re enough. Chip doesn’t really matter anymore.
mediatek chips are garbage compared to qualcomm and apple. anytime i had to use a phone with a mediatek chip in it, or a chromebook, it was so bad.
Qualcomm is getting close with Elite series, but Apple still has the lead. Others are pretty behind in performance. Mediatek is fine if your only use case is watching YouTube.
All of these Big Tech companies are slimy fucks actively working to enslave humanity. There are no good guys. I puked in my mouth watching Tim Cook fawn over Trump. None of these people have a shred of decency. Fuck Apple. Fuck Google. Buy a paper map.
Better yet, help support open data initiatives like OpenStreetMaps or alternatives. No reason why maps can’t be digital without ads.
Tried to, but they block some vpn IPs and ne some mail domains, notably mail aliases
Plus they basically stopped replying to me. Are mail aliases really used as spam? I believe it’s a made up thing
And anyways, when contacting them manually, it should be enough to understand that it’s not automated. It would be so easy to spam register using non flagged IPs and non flagged domains but they’re still rigid about these rules. I hate when services do that.
support open data initiatives like OpenStreetMaps
Yes!, continue supporting OpenStreetMaps so Apple, Mapbox, Microsoft, Uber and Lyft can continue turning your free work into millions of dollars.
buy a paper map…no man we went away from that for a reason.
i just wish OSM was more complete… it’s fine for big cities, but when you live in small rural areas it’s practically useless. my village only has its roads mapped, nothing else.
(and yes i know you can edit the map. and that it’s the entire point of OSM. i know that. but it takes a ton of effort, and it’s an ongoing effort because cities change!)
OSM contributors, you are amazing and cherished and your work does not go unappreciated. i just wish there was more of us…
I know of a few rural places that have far more information on OSM than Google. Especially if those areas have a lot of hiking trails. Looking at the logs, it’s typically a small handful of people adding things over significant time. It’s worth keeping both on your device, and making edits on occasion. Rural areas change pretty slowly typically.
Funny thing, over here, OSM actually got weird rural stuff for a couple of rural towns I visited frequently about a year before Google Maps (and other proprietary services) was usable there. I think it had to do with some open-data drop from the government.
And seeing the services grow side by side also kind of gave away what their priorities were. Google: putting the local businesses and services on the map. OSM: document every single cool and convenient foot and bike trail.
Once you create a monetization team that puts ads in shit, they’re going to want to keep putting more ads in stuff. They’re all judged on how much better they do year over year.
Apple should’ve never created a team that sold ads on their platforms.
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Mmmmm, corpo defense via victim blaming. You love to see it.
Next up, Microsoft is obligated to install 24/7 spyware on all ststems because tech incompetent users don’t know how to use anything else.
Indeed. Between 150 and 40 years ago a “platform” that sold devices and also vertically owned everything up to and including the advertising business on those devices would have been illegal. Even AT&T didn’t try to mess with the actual content of your phone conversations, despite de facto being given a get-out-of-jail-free card with regards to monopolistic behaviour for 70 years. This isn’t a matter of people being bad at buying stuff.
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Is CoMaps the only alternative besides google maps?
OSMAnd
Magic Earth
