> They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression.

I'm not sure this is a fair comparison. Open source is not the same as privacy-friendly.

Apple makes privacy a core-tenet of their product. I do not see the same stance from Mapbox.

I work at Mapbox. Not speaking officially for the company here (for that see https://www.mapbox.com/privacy/), but I can say it's definitely an internalized norm that in order to earn trust as a platform we need to be very careful with any user data we get. While user-generated location data does flow into updating our map, we are aggressive about anonymizing and aggregating that data as quickly as possible (including stripping out data on the client side).

But I agree Apple has consistently advertised their focus on privacy and backed it up with their actions.

Hey Chris, glad to hear that is an internal focus!

I hope for the sake of the Internet that one day discussions about privacy aren’t needed because it’s the default everywhere. Then everyone wins. :)

Except advertisers and industries propped up by that model

Apples core tenet is making money, they have recently started making privacy a concern probably because they think that it will make money.

Google Claims to protect privacy as well. In fact they make a number of tools that are built just for that reason. But it's all marketing, and the tools are there only to really benefit Google. Just take a look at Android's Wi-Fi assistant that creates and automatic VPN to Google's servers.

My point is it isn't as back and white as companies claiming to protect privacy. At the end of the day Apple is just as bad.

Every corporation claims to protect privacy

sure, I raise an eyebrow at companies that 'protect privacy' but have an atrocious security record. You might try, but if you can't be bothered to check passwords for admin access in your own OS, I my not believe you have the capabilities to protect your own nuts.