Magic Earth is an alternative to Waze and Google Maps with crowdsourced traffic and road hazard information
As part of a #BigTechDiet, I’ve been hoping to find an alternative to #Waze and #Google Maps - a navigation app that can tell me about slowdowns, hazards, and speed traps based on reports from other users. Today, I learned about Magic Earth.
It’s proprietary, but not from FAANG or a company subject to the government of China, Russia, or Five Eyes countries. It collects minimal user data and has a good privacy policy. There are versions for both Android and iOS, and the Android version works without Google services.
#navigation #maps #Android #IOS #AndroidApp #IOSApp @technology
An intriguing idea, but they seem a little vague about where they’re actually getting their traffic data from, just a “third party”. For crowd-sourced traffic data to be at all useful it needs to be coming from software that a lot of drivers happen to have on their phones, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Google or Apple aren’t to be found somewhere in the pipeline.
@theplanlessman It may not be suitable for people who consider anything Google has ever touched tainted, but my big tech diet isn’t that strict. I’m moving off direct use of big tech products where it isn’t a large burden to do so.