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From: "Mr. B" <mrbusiness@aaathats3as.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc, comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Apple Maps ... now in a web browser near you
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2024 01:43:09 -0000 (UTC)
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On Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:29:33 +1200, Your Name wrote:

> Currently in public beta testing. No need for a specific Maps app, but
> it does need an up-to-date version of Safari, Chrome, or Edge web
> browsers (apparently does not work with Firefox for some weird reaon).
> 
> 
> 
>     Apple takes direct aim at Google with surprising launch of Apple
>     Maps on the web
>     -------------------------------------------------------
>     Now you won't need an Apple device to use the best mapping service.
[snip]

It looks like mapkit has had a public API (https://developer.apple.com/
documentation/mapkitjs) for quite some time now. DuckDuckGo uses it to 
provide a maps experience much like Google.

I can also confirm that firefox is "unsupported". This is trivial to 
bypass by spoofing a Safari user agent, and so far it's perfectly usable. 
After getting to compare DDG and Apple Maps on the web, the data is all 
the same, but ranked and presented very differently. Queries on DDG are 
relatively geographically broad and static: one example returned results 
for a ~5mi radius while zoomed to ~0.5mi. The maps beta is much tighter, 
but even fairly minor shifts cause it to run the query again.