You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
14 points

I’ve used Apple Maps for years and it’s never steered me wrong. It’s no better or worse than any other map app.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points
*

Visually it’s nicer than Google Maps… I still prefer the amount of data about points of interest that Google Maps has. Apple’s reliance on Yelp is a bit cumbersome. Overall, I trust Apple a bit more from a privacy standpoint though.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-1 points

Both have terrible literally terrible Privacy.

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points
*

IIRC Apple does apply differential privacy - sending wrong information randomly about your trips to themselves, where they then average over all users to get rid of the noise they added so it becomes useful aggregate data.

And they never submit the start and end locations of the trips. Maybe the privacy is still terrible but it’s way way way better than Google’s IMO

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-from-the-ground-up/

“We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B. We’re collecting the segments of it. As you can imagine, that’s always been a key part of doing this. Honestly, we don’t think it buys us anything [to collect more]. We’re not losing any features or capabilities by doing this.”

The segments that he is referring to are sliced out of any given person’s navigation session. Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.

Because only random segments of any person’s drive is ever sent and that data is completely anonymized, there is never a way to tell if any trip was ever a single individual. The local system signs the IDs and only it knows to whom that ID refers. Apple is working very hard here to not know anything about its users. This kind of privacy can’t be added on at the end, it has to be woven in at the ground level.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

You can try Organic Maps if you have a pressing need for privacy in your maps app.

It seems… okay… when I used it. No support for android or apple auto integration though.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


Community stats

  • 18K

    Monthly active users

  • 11K

    Posts

  • 507K

    Comments