I think this article illustrates a critical issue with Apple's software. The stance on privacy means little machine learning can take place. Little machine learning means that Apple has to resort to more manual techniques. This, in turn, leads to the far inferior (and often dangerously incorrect) place databases and issues with their Maps application.
And then users will simply turn to an alternative which absolutely does not care about their privacy, undoing all of Apple's effort in protecting their users' privacy.
Apple needs to strike a balance between protecting users' privacy and performing analytics. Perhaps send the data off-shore to a location not under US jurisdiction, I don't know. But it is clear that Apple cannot keep up with its competitors with its current practices.
How can violating someone's privacy improve their place database? Extract "I'm waiting at <restaurant name> now" from people's iMessage chats???
Google has been connecting place names by OCRing storefronts taken with their street view cars. Apple claim to be doing the same thing (but apparently doing a far worse job of it)
If you look up somewhere in Google Maps and then go there, with your phone in your pocket, Google knows where you went. It also knows how long you stayed there.
Now they know exactly where it is, when people like to go there, and if the opening hours seem accurate.
Not limited to them of course, this is also check-in companies' business model, like Foursquare.
Two years ago Apple released information on its website about "differential privacy", which is a branch of data analysis that deals with collecting information for analysis that cannot be tied directly back to an individual person.
I think they do a pretty good job with the little data they do collect. For example, I almost exclusively use Apple Maps–it's not like it's unusable. It might help that all my navigation needs fall inside of California, but at least here I haven't had many issues.
It's incredibly detailed in pointing out the differences between old and new Apple Maps, as well as comparing map images from Apple, Google, Tom Tom, and others.
The article demonstrates through the use of animated gifs that Apple Maps has become significantly better over time and in many cases surpasses the quality of competitors.
> The article demonstrates through the use of animated gifs that Apple Maps has become significantly better over time and in many cases surpasses the quality of competitors.
Except for actually finding & navigating to places, where it's somehow getting worse rather than better.
Vegetation & building outlines are the primary aspects Apple Maps is improving upon per the article, whereas places are getting worse.
The workaround will probably be that they end up buying the data from a provider who doesn't care much about privacy.
How they don't yet have a web presence boggles my mind though. I send in small corrections to Google Maps all the time when I notice errors, Apple Maps won't let me do that.
The balance they are striking is that they are collecting trip information, but anonymizing it by only sending segments of a given trip and not the whole thing (as well as by not associating trip data with the user).
And then users will simply turn to an alternative which absolutely does not care about their privacy, undoing all of Apple's effort in protecting their users' privacy.
Apple needs to strike a balance between protecting users' privacy and performing analytics. Perhaps send the data off-shore to a location not under US jurisdiction, I don't know. But it is clear that Apple cannot keep up with its competitors with its current practices.