Thank you for the link, I emailed them and waiting for their response; it is surprisingly difficult to find an actual programmer nowadays, AI brothers are everywhere though.
>As an avid OpenStreetMapper I honestly wonder what kind of data is missing in OpenStreetMap. Is that something sighted persons cannot grasp and thus not add to OSM? Have you seen.
Thank you for providing that link — it was helpful. The information I want to display is text-based rather than graphic-based. My plan is to have two systems working in tandem: physical hardware placed in areas of interest like bus stops, intersections, etc., and a user interface that queries this data. The UI will be entirely text-based, with an absolute minimum of graphics.
In the future, if this project succeeds, I aim to launch my own GPS satellite to bypass Google’s predatory API calls.
Yes — but in Phase 1, the map will be text-only to ensure accessibility. What I envision is a sort of Wikipedia for my entire city, where every landmark and point of interest is cataloged and annotated in a rolling fashion, allowing others to edit, expand, and improve. Kind of like Google Reviews — except not owned by an advertising company.
>I'm not sure what it means. It's a PDF reader? It's another format that is similar PDF but more screen reader friendly?
Yes, a PDF alternative optimized for screen readers. For some reason, PDFs have clunky functionality when it comes to working with my screen reader. PDF URLs are especially egregious—VoiceOver really struggles to read them. So, I started writing a new file format that allows screen reader compatibility from the start.
>The data is open, so it may be useful to build an easier to use client, so you don't have to collect all the info.
Yes, I know that website—I’ll use it if I need it. So far, I’ve been preoccupied with some other data that neither Open Maps nor Google provides. I’m about 30–35% done. I also have to think about whether to go open or closed source before using their data. Even though what they provide is mostly public domain, nonetheless, I want to stick to my own principles: credit/donate where it’s due, or go without.
>There is no obligation as a maintainer to merge all PR. But remember to be nice.
This is actually a great question. For me, as an individual, the software I create to fulfill an important need for blind people would be worth it. But having said that, I shouldn't just look at it from one perspective—I need to consider it from other angles as well.
I have to anticipate how the code will be received once I open source it, and my question was a way to fill the gaps I might have about the consequences of releasing the code under a certain license.
I guess I could bypass all these inquiries, lazily upload my code to GitHub, have vultures like Google find it, copy it, and put it into Google Maps. They may or may not care about catering to blind people (the original intended audience), and then my little code would just fade away, as a more refined version would likely emerge elsewhere.
Yes, as I read HN and Reddit, I’m seeing all the big corporations acting like vultures. The problem is, as these corporations monopolize the market—either by buying out or rendering smaller independent companies and developers obsolete—and as most of the brilliant programmers end up working for the same 3–4 tech giants, I’d be forced to either:
Allow these vultures to steal my code, lock it behind a paywall, and then compete with me using my own work; or
Make my code GPLv3 to effectively block them and their subsidiaries from touching it.
In that case, I and other independent developers would retain control and be the ones improving the code—unless, of course, the AI-bros are allowed to steal with impunity, which would make this whole conversation pointless.
That’s exactly what I have in mind too. The only issue is avoiding the “freeloader problem” that most big corporations have embraced lately. For example, with my local navigation system, I don’t want Google scraping all my valuable data to feed into Google Maps—only for them to charge me $10,000 per API call when I try to query the same data they took.
If you’re a nonprofit or a small, local business, then by all means, use my maps—that’s who I built them for. But big corporations? No.
Open Maps is facing this exact problem right now. Every shady AI and LLM is scraping their data and making millions, yet contributing nothing back to the source.
I want to avoid all that by making it very clear: if you're a big corp and you want access to our data, you need to pay up. Otherwise, take a hike.
They’ll probably take the data anyway without permission, just because they can afford $500/hour lawyers—but at least I’ll have made the effort to stand my ground.
I think Apple knows that in the desktop market, they don't have as much of a monopoly as they do in mobile. So they often neglect the Mac and its software because if they introduce a poor native app on the Mac, you can create your own and sell it without giving them a cent—an option that doesn't exist on iOS.
But on iOS, you have to pay them $99 a year in the USA to publish apps in the Apple Store. So if Apple creates a crappy knock-off of your app that is free and comes with iOS itself, most people would use that instead of yours.
The problem with web-based apps is that although they free you from Apple and Google stores, they unfortunately introduce friction that modern users won't tolerate.
Sure, back in the early 2000s, when the majority of internet users were techies, this might have been viable. But now, if you don't have an app, you might as well not exist.
As for AI, unless I'm creating the graphics cards themselves, I see AI being in the same boat as apps. OpenAI and Google will add more and more features until they become like Apple.
In the AI gold rush, you want to sell the shovels like Nvidia is doing now. Don't try to be yet another gold prospector by creating another chatbot wrapper that they will outshine in a few months.
But isn't this constant idea that Apple and other OS providers should add more features to their platforms ultimately counterproductive?
If, as a developer, I knew I only had a couple of years at best before Apple replicates my app, would there be any incentive for me to create the app and pay Apple the $99 yearly fee?
The Apple App Store is a lot like a shopping mall with Apple as the landlord. Imagine you rented a spot from Apple in the mall to sell your products. Then, Apple, afraid of being left behind, starts creating the same exact shop next to you, selling the exact same products cheaper since it owns the mall. This would cause you to lose customers and eventually close down.
If this trend continues, there could come a point where every app is replicated by Apple.
These app owners would go out of business, and the App Store would become nothing but a catalog of Apple apps and other apps created by Microsoft, Facebook, and the like.
Is that good for the indie developers at the end ?
I can foresee a world where the indie software developer doesn't exist because the platform owners are essentially offering their products for free.
How about the customer ?
As Apple isn't obligated to provide anything good in terms of software, just a free alternative that's baked into the OS, would that even matter in the end?
Do you realize that some multi-billion dollar, publicly traded companies rely heavily on volunteers who contribute content for free? Imagine if I came to you in 2005 and said, "Would you invest in a for-profit company where the vast majority of workers provide content without any expectation of payment?" You would probably refuse because it sounds like a stupid and unrealistic idea.
But here we are in 2024. Not only has this company succeeded by getting free labor to build itself, but it has also gone public, become valued in the billions of dollars, and made its owners and investors incredibly wealthy. That company is Reddit.
Meanwhile, the people who create the content that makes Reddit what it is are not paid a cent.
Unless you're not building graphics from scratch and competing with Nvidia, you're building just another wrapper that will soon be obsoleted by another company with billions of dollars.
In a gold rush, instead of selling large language models (LLMs), which are easily surpassed, sell the shovels, which are the graphic cards. Those are what give you the ultimate competitive advantage.
In the age of cars, rather than horses, you want to own the oil wells, not be the guy building the coffee cup holder.
The lower you sit in the technological stack, the more money, power, and leverage you will have in the age of AI.
Let me clarify. The heavy lifting wouldn't be done by the iPhone itself, but by connected devices, similar to how you print a document using a Bluetooth printer connected to your iPhone.
Imagine having all the necessary medical equipment at home, compatible with your iPhone. Instead of a doctor taking your temperature, weight, and asking general health questions, these devices would perform those tasks. Each device would analyze the data and send the results to your iPhone, just like a digital thermometer transmits data to a computer in a doctor's office.
You might be thinking of the iPhone as a standalone doctor, but that's not the concept. Instead, the iDoctor app would delegate tasks to different devices, each acting like a mini-server.
Similar to how Amazon Alexa works with smart light bulbs, these devices would connect to your iPhone's iDoctor app for diagnosis. The app could then analyze the data and suggest if a specialist visit is necessary, potentially saving you a trip to the doctor's office.
In essence, the iDoctor app would leverage connected devices for diagnosis, with the iPhone acting as a central hub for data collection and analysis.
It is not just my imagination. If you follow the features that Apple is adding to their watches, you realize my predictions aren't that far off. Apple will do it inch-by-inch, though. They won't declare this app at once, but rather they would add each medical assistance feature one by one
This would actually be a revolutionary idea. Imagine the iPhone becoming your primary doctor, eliminating the need for traditional visits. This has never happened before. Have a fever? Use this digital thermometer to measure your body temperature. Discolored urine? Open the camera, and iDoctor will evaluate its healthiness. If not, you can use another device that analyzes samples to identify the cause.
Essentially, the iPhone would be the central processing unit for all your potential health concerns. If the app determines a probability of a specific disease, it would recommend a relevant specialist.
This could eliminate the need for a traditional primary doctor, their assistants, and the associated overhead, saving money for both patients and insurance companies. Instead of paying for both a primary doctor and a specialist, they would only pay for this app and a specialist visit when necessary.