They made it genuinely good. It'd been my only map app for years until I downloaded google maps for a road trip and was perplexed by all the squares I didn't ask for telling me about Arby's and Toyota dealers. "People tolerate this?!"
Long enough to be the villain.
Google maps’ reviews aren’t great - everything is a 4.3 because they incentivised users to review business interactions they didn’t care about by paying them pennies in Google pay credit - but it will at least tell me reliably if a business is closed today or has shut down.
Sometimes there's a recent review saying that, but other times there's no indication at all.
I have a second iphone.
main iphone - mostly revolves around phone and messages. lockdown mode. no bluetooth, no wifi, no location services, privacy stuff all restricted. I also do some web browsing. I run adblock which lets you filter lots of stuff. apple id signed out.
and my second iphone - offline iphone.
I install it using ethernet with outside connection (usb->ethernet dongles work for iphone)
I delete MANY apps, like phone, messages, tips, stock, health, news, tv, all happily.
I install some 3rd-party apps.
I sign into the app store only with apple id.
I install adblock and enable it.
I install audible and kindle, add books/audiobooks (adblock prevents some ad connections like kochava.com)
translation (offline). siri (offline). maps (offline).
All of these have offline data that I download.
Then I sign out of icloud (the app store conveniently kind-of-signs-you in)
-> and I disconnect the phone for the last time.
then I turn on:
- bluetooth on.
- location services on.
- camera with location services.
- siri
I don't use wifi, just the ethernet to my (local only) network. I use some apps that talk to my local network - omnifocus, nextcloud.
and I have an offline phone that doesn't phone home.
the maps problem is: apple offline maps last 30 days then disappear. There are lots of complaints online about this. "I was in timbuktu with no internet and couldn't navigate back to the village because the maps expired".
If I need them have I wipe the phone and start over. Jerks.
also audible downloads auto-remove when you get to the end. hard to find settings: Downloads -> settings -> auto remove books: off
Maybe excessive, but it makes me happy.
But an offline phone? no tracking, but you can still turn on location services, siri, maps (with directions).
it also doesn't need wifi or cellular, so works in the woods etc.
kindle books/audible audiobooks track each thing you do, but can't offline.
so again: makes me happy. You should be able to be left alone.
That screenshot in the link is still vastly better than Google Maps: a generic search for "restaurants" may feature a clearly marked sponsored restaurant. There's a long ways to go until they get to Google or Yelp's level. But we all know they'll get there soon enough, copying Google's "innovations" as they go.
Arguably already happened, via notifications. They've long allowed third-party apps to send notifications that are actually ads, and a few first-party apps (most notably wallet with the F1 movie ads last year) have started doing this too. Those made it to the lock screen, and if you happened to dock any of those apps, the obnoxious red notification dot would induce you to click on it.
Any app that did that to me lost its notification privileges permanently and got uninstalled if it wasn't a built-in app, but I suppose Apple could start directly injecting unavoidable ads too.
Voting with wallet doesn’t work, the power imbalance ya too large. This isn’t boycotting your local deli because they get rid of your favourite sandwich.
Eventually china’s cultural takeover will win out and we can only hope it isn’t built on the parasitical advertising industry.
I’m not sure I understand the distinction between “precise location” and “a device’s approximate location” here. If the latter is still location data from the device, how meaningful is the privacy difference?
"we don’t need to know a lot about you to deliver a great experience on Apple Maps." -> so you still need to know a little about me ?
"Even if you choose to sign in, Maps keeps your data in sync across all your devices using end-to-end encryption — so where you go isn’t associated with your Apple Account at all." -> looks like magic, data is synced accross all your devices but without using your apple account ...
For shop owners buying ads, they'll still need to provide statistics of view, clicks and conversions and that needs tracking. So that's not different from google. Apple claims to be the champion of privacy, that's just hypocritical. Just check the apple Advertising & Privacy page.
The difference is in how the data is handled. One is using it as an asset to update the FBI-like file they have on you. The other is treating it like a hot potato.
While letting Facebook, TikTok and others secretly track you for years, across devices AND DEVICE REINSTALLS, through Apple's iCloud Keychain API, to store data that users cannot see or delete on iOS, except through the macOS Keychain app, and even then it's dubious if that's all that's actually stored.
Thanks!
Now that this will obviously change, why should I keep using Apple Maps? At least they should have kept it ad-free for people already paying a premium for their Apple One Premium subscription.
I have less and less incentives to stay in the Apple ecosystem, this is just another nail in the coffin.
As a result, I am transitioning away from being one of their customers.
I say enshittification but it’s a bit of a misnomer because Apple Maps hasn’t ever really not been shit, but anyway…
Long dreamed of using map as a treasure/deal hunt, like the Japanese, especially in this economy: https://tinyurl.com/2dlx29eo
slwvx•8h ago