You're forgetting one detail that I think should be emphasized here: OSM is about free knowledge (as in freedom). You can use, modify and share OSM data however you want. Apple on the other hand is hoarding its information. You can only access it through their products in the ways they intended. They control everything (as always).

I do believe it when Apple says they're respecting their users' privacy, just like I believe it when DDG says that. But I am disappointed when I see how these companies neglect freedom and how so few of their users care about it.

It’s disappointing that DDG isn’t supporting an open infrastructure, but when you think about it their offering is in fact a closed infrastructure similar in principle to Apple’s. It is a closed product, but which promises to protect your privacy. That has value when choosing to use a service in the short term, but it’s not something to build on or to rely on in the long term, after all both companies could make any pivot they want if their incentives change in future. A better model would be contributing to a search engine which is open source, that cannot pivot without being forked.

Agreed, even though it's extremely unlikely companies like Apple or DuckDuckGo will pivot.

Another big argument for supporting free software solutions is to do it for the people who want/need freedom (like whistleblowers or activists).

> You can use, modify and share OSM data however you want.

You are still free to do that with OSM. Not sure what that has to do with DDG. Just because they don't want to use OSM, doesn't change any of your rights to using OSM.

> Apple on the other hand is hoarding its information.

You are free to requisition a fleet of mapping vehicles, drones and satellites and gather your own maps information and share it with whomever you want. If Apple is the one paying a ton of money to create their information, I'm not sure why it's surprising that they want to use that information in their products.

You don't have a right to Apple's mapping data any more than you have a right to Colonel Sanders's chicken recipe -- however, nothing is stopping you from making your own chicken recipe and sharing it with whomever you want. You could even start a community around sharing chicken recipes. That some people don't care about chicken recipe secrecy doesn't harm your rights to enjoy chicken with recipes created and shared by you or your friends. Some of us actually just want to buy some fried chicken and not worry about the provenance of the recipe. We have more important priorities (for us) than the openness of a private company's chicken preparation secrets. We just want good tasting chicken. Many of us aren't chicken enthusiasts, spending our time lamenting the secrecy of the Colonel's chicken choices.

What it really sounds like the source of your complaint is that if DDG doesn't continue to use OSM, then perhaps OSM will suffer for it. If that's the real origin of your disdain for this decision, then perhaps OSM isn't as valuable in the marketplace of ideas as people might think it is. However, if this actually doesn't affect OSM (I don't think it does,) then that means that DDG can use whatever they want and the OSM folks can happily share to their heart's content.

Apple has more than enough money. More than they'll ever need. It's actively employing strategies to avoid taxes. I think they can afford to do some public service from time to time, even if it means (in absolute numbers, massive) losses (if you don't count the value of having done something good for the people).

I'm not saying Apple does nothing for the open source scene. In fact, they're maintaining some important projects (like WebKit). But when you have billions of dollars that you don't know what to do with stored in some offshore haven, you could do a bit more.

Apple do support OSM. In one European country, Apple Maps actually uses OSM data solely.

Yeah and that's nice but I think they could do better (than developing their own proprietary maps)

In many places (e.g. many parts of Germany) Google and Apple maps are far inferior compared to OSM and Mapbox specifically.

I tried finding an address recently on Google Maps, and just couldn’t find it, only to discover that that street was added 4 years ago, so ofc Google (with data from 2011) didn’t have it. OSM had it.

Yes, OSM can give truly excellent results for certain areas. And truly awful results for others.

This applies to all of the mapping providers. It takes a truly massive ground game to get really good map data for the entire world. Many players are working on this and I'm sure many will continue to work on it. A map that was garbage for your area three months ago might be great today.

The same for Apple Maps, except any improvements that go there fall into another closed silo.

I’m also happy to see this move, but I tried to give Apple Maps another chance recently and it’s significantly behind Google. I didn’t even last a day. Especially if you’re trying to find things around your area, which is probably 99% of my usage.

No surprise the blog post highlights how easy to use this integration is...in Cupertino.

> Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

Not in Portugal, or most places in Europe where I’ve tried it. They are so far behind it’s not even funny.

Or most of east Asia. It won’t even find what you’re looking for most of the time, let alone give sensible directions.

Well, the map quality depends on the region. So I could easily argue that OSM has much better quality than Google Maps, looking at Hamburg, Germany for example.

I know that the quality is not everywhere as good as there, but the quality varies for the other Map products too. So if it 'sucks' or the other thing 'sucks' greatly depends on where you currently are.

ive been using it for a few months now. its not as good as google maps but definitely doesn't suck. and certainly is better than apple maps.

>ive been using it for a few months now. its not as good as google maps but definitely doesn't suck. and certainly is better than apple maps.

I've also found the mapping aspects to be ok, but the search results are truly abysmal in comparison to Apple Maps. Point-to-point direction finding is of course a solved, commoditized technical problem this point. But the real special sauce is in combining that with real time traffic info and highly relevant local search results, which Apple does far better than any open source offering I've seen.

> Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

Reporting from Washington, DC: nope.

> Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point.

In California maybe.

Everywhere else? Not even close.

In my experience, Apple maps are on a par with Google Maps in London. Google never get my address location right, despite numerous reports to them. Apple does.

i'm in north Texas and into Oklahoma a lot, and Apple Maps has been fantastic here. I haven't had Google Maps installed on my iPhone in years.