If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default browsers, maps, and email clients on their devices.

One profession missing in the parent comment are the researchers innovating on differential privacy. Apple has taken great pains to figure out ways to improve their maps without storing massive amounts of private user data, to the extent that they split routes in half, fuzz addresses, and analyze the start and end of trips independently.

There's an argument that Google had such a huge head start on maps, that without Apple having the capacity to set defaults (on a platform that is not even a plurality of users), Apple Maps wouldn't have gotten enough users to justify improvements to where it is now. Apple also didn't get serious about having its own maps until Google attempted to exercise their at-the-time near-monopoly power to jack up licensing costs. Now the mere existence of Apple maps puts pressure on Google to improve the privacy features of its own map products as we've seen recently.

Apple funds map development through device sales, and Google does it through targeted advertising, map services for third parties, and profiling users. Do we value competition only of mapping products, or should we also value a diversity of business models for mapping products? It's no small decision to bring in the Kommissar.

Sidenote: I disagree that Apple Maps' success puts pressure on Google to up their privacy game. On the contrary, Google Maps comparative advantage is their data trove, as there are many more users of Google Maps than Apple Maps, so they seem more likely to lean on that to succeed.

I wouldn't look to the market to improve privacy, since as I said above, the market clearly doesn't care about privacy much at all. Without a seismic shift in public attitudes towards privacy, it's up to the government or the companies themselves to adapt.

Are they demonstrating their willingness, or do they simply not understand that there is a choice to be made? Considering the trivial difference in mapping performance in most places, I doubt most people would be willing to give up their privacy in exchange for saving a few seconds on their drive to the mall.

> Without a seismic shift in public attitudes towards privacy,

If people were truly aware of how much data is collected on them, how many people would opt in for the marginal benefits you get in return?

Acting as if people are unaware of data collection is disingenuous. If you told the average facebook user how much facebook and its third-party partners knew about them, I doubt many of them would stop using the platform.

It's not just ignorance, but a sense of helplessness. People don't feel in control and don't have any clue how they might reduce what data leaks out in their daily lives. The thing is, they are absolutely right.

I know and understand a lot of this stuff and I don't feel like I'm in control of my data. Even if you take precautions, Google and Facebook track your progress across the web. If you don't use Google Maps, Google still tracks your location using your IP address for network calls (often when you aren't deliberately connecting to Google services) and both Google and Facebook have been slurping up people's purchase history through credit card companies.

How is someone who doesn't have a clue about this stuff supposed to exert any control or choice when the people attacking their privacy out-gun them so thoroughly?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.google/technology/safety-s...

* Added incognito mode to maps

* Expands auto deletion of old data to include locations, and location searches

Now... this might not be due solely to competitive pressures from Apple, but it was a topic of conversations I had with pro-privacy Android users I know who have been warming up to iOS. Feature introductions like this definitely take the edge off.

Then buy Android if that's a tradeoff you're willing to make.

That was never going to work for Apple.

At the time of the MS/IE lawsuit (2001), Microsoft Windows had well over 95% of desktop operating system market share.

Edit: I want to add that during the suit MS reps had a glib but prescient defense: "we think web browsers should be free". They meant as in beer, but they were right in the larger sense, and few would disagree with them today.

Netscape was arguing that their by-then totally crappy commercial browser deserved protection from the state, when their demise had a lot more to do with insane bloat and their embrace of groupware.

Safari is great on iOS. I’ve never felt the need to run something different. Same with sideloading apps. I’ve never seen the need for that. Maybe I’m an Apple fanboy but I think they’re doing the right thing in both cases.

Not setting a default is bad too. Wish I could get there.

This is so disingenuous. It's called Android. People hate it. Although the walled garden may offend you personally, the market at large has spoken.

It's probably enough to make anyone switch to Android, but it can still be a welcome addition to iOS

If Google restricted the user in the same way, that would arguably be closer to the Microsoft situation because their marketshare is 2x Apple's.

- Strong encryption - Privacy Protections - Not using user data

https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-...

Even if you were going to restrict to just the US, Apple still sells fewer than 50% of the phones.

> The market is all the places the devices are sold.

Certainly US regulators / courts don't purport to have jurisdiction over foreign markets, agreed? The aforementioned EU case against Microsoft was about the EU market alone.

Google would like you to have a discussion with the EU on their behalf.

If apple cared about elevating the discipline and righting the abuses of big tech with their mapping app they'd partner with OpenStreetMap and make the data public rather than continuing to silo all the data about you and everyone around you.

Instead we're continuing the closed source data gathering land rush and trying to beat google at its own game.

Are you suggesting Google didnt elevate the discipline of search because their backend is closed?

(Source: Talk by Apple employee at the OSM'a 'State of the Map' conference 2018 https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co... )

I’m genuinely curious why you think they should do this.

Because they would be legally obligated to when using OSM as a base for anything.

Also, because it would benefit society.

They have a good history of community contribution (eg. Darwin, WebKit) so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, instead of some random anonymous internet commenter angst.

I also don’t see how it is consistent with their behavior. For example, Apple wouldn’t need to change anything to bash to make its latest version run on MacOS. Yet, they don’t ship it.

On the other hand, the argument that they don’t avoid the GPL in general, but specifically GPLv3 because of legal concerns is consistent with their behavior. They shipped the latest GPLv2 licensed bash for years, but avoid any GPLv3 licensed version.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208050

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090193

Apple has historically been hostile to the GPL. Remember when Apple removed the GPLv2-licensed VLC from the App Store in 2011?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/01/vlc-for-ios-vanishes...

VLC didn't return to the App Store until the iOS version was dual-licensed under the MPL 30 months later.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/vlc-media-player-ret...

Also, IIRC, Apple doesn't have a policy of prohibiting GPL-licensed software from being in the App Store, but rather, the FSF's own interpretation of the GPL is that its terms are incompatible with the App Store's terms.

> WebKit is open source software with portions licensed under the LGPL and BSD licenses available here.

Even though those licenses don't require it, Apple still actively develops and publishes enormous FOSS projects. Here's a page that lists more of them: https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

Apple gives back way more than they're legally required to. They don't like the GPLv3 specifically, but's worlds apart from saying they avoid the GPL or that they don't want to give back.

”I created a layer on top of an OSM map. What do I have to put under your license?

You have to determine whether what you have created is a Collective Work or a Derivative work, under the terms of the OSM licence.

If what you create is based on OSM data (for example if you create a new layer by looking at the OSM data and refering to locations on it) then it is likely you have created a derivative work.

If you generate a merged work with OSM data and other data (such as a printed map or pdf map) where the non-OSM data can no longer be considered to be separate and independent from the OSM data, is is likely you have created a derivative work.

If you overlay OSM data with your own data created from other sources (for example you going out there with a GPS receiver) and the layers are kept separate and independent, and the OSM layer is unchanged, then you may have created a collective work.

If you have created a derivative work, the work as a whole must be subject to the OSM licence. If you have created a collective work, then only the OSM component of the work must be subject to the OSM licence.”

IANAL, but I think anybody can overlay OSM data with traffic info, satellite photography, layers with names of shops, etc., without creating a derivative work.

In reality, the market offers rewards proportional to value that can be withheld, as leverage for price negotiation.

It would be a big deal to create an economic system that reliably measures and rewards benefit to society. I haven't the faintest idea how.

The thing is, they did this before. But the interaction just wasn't direct. All of those people were doing important work for government and business organizations wherever getting around and knowing where you and other things are mattered, and improving the quality of services.

Now we get first-hand experience with their work, which is fantastic. Map apps are probably the thing that most enticed me onto a smart phone and the thing I'd have a hardest time giving up.

I just hope that every time we remember the before and after for these amazing conveniences, we remember that all these disciplines and professionals were important beforehand, and that there are others that are woven quietly into public and private life. Because there's a lot of voices right now that seem interested in burning down institutions and not enough curiosity in what those institutions have done for us.

This is such a Silicon Valley perspective.