I think it’s worth amending this to just “apps can kill”. I volunteer with search and rescue sometimes and have seen several people get into bad trouble due to reliance on phones for maps. Sometimes it’s dead batteries or just breakage without a backup plan, but no doubt other times it’s changing behavior in the app itself, OS decided to wipe cache, app has bad info, whatever.
You can say that people should know better but sometimes dead tree maps are not available, and anyway there’s no doubt that they are on the way out. The “safe/reliable” way might even seem to be up for debate, since phones can be more waterproof than paper, less likely to blow away when you’re on top of a mountain, serve as a backup flashlight/emergency comms, etc. But all it takes is a company that decides to force auto update and a PM that decides feature churn increases engagement and creates job security, and who knows what will break?
It is kind of like packaging that’s a choking or asphyxiation hazard.. if you’re doing anything that affects millions of people, it’s almost ALWAYS a safety issue even if you don’t usually think of it that way. No big audience or big user base without big responsibilities. Sure you’ll probably not be held liable in law suits, but on the other hand you should probably feel bad if you’re killing people due to indifference /negligence when thinking through edge cases.
> but no doubt other times it’s changing behavior in the app itself, OS decided to wipe cache, app has bad info, whatever
GaiaGPS, which advertises is offline capability, after an update (but not immediately after the update) recently required users to login to continue using the app. Which was impossible if you happened to be out of cell phone range 10 miles from a trailhead when this login popup happened. Incredibly bone-headed move, and dangerous for hikers that aren't smart enough to carry backup map sources. But Gaia has been trending this way for several years.
I wish there was a way to write a poison pill clause into a company's founding charter, such as "We will not be evil, and should the day arrive when we become evil, the company shall be liquidated and all its IP shall become open source under the MIT license. 'Evil' is described below..." and one of the many ways to be evil would of course be to require users to be online and/or to log into an account before using the service. Or to suddenly decide to make a profit after starting as a nonprofit, like OpenAI. Such a clause would have to be completely understood by VCs and investors prior to investing. If no investors wanted to invest under these circumstances, so be it. This is the only kind of company I'd ever want to be a founder of.
That’s what Benefit Corps exist for - but it’s a very rarely used vehicle. Anthropic is a well known example of a B Corp.
The structure provides a way for leadership to refuse to act in ways that counter the company’s charter.
More here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
TIL that Anthropic is a Benefit Corp. Thank you!
Their end-user privacy policy says "We will not use your Inputs or Outputs to train our models" (followed by carve-outs, which seem reasonable).
Very minor life hack, but when hiking with a phone map I always take a screenshot of the map to ensure I have at least that. Also a good habit to photo the map whenever starting a known trail with the big map at the start - I do that as a habit now.
One time, I dropped my phone in a parking lot and it landed face down on a pebble rendering my screen completely unusable. That's never happened with a paper map in a ziploc bag.
Funny thing. I was in search and rescue as a teen, and I went though the courses with a friend. A decade or so later, we were hiking on a bright sunny day* and weren't properly prepared. We went off trail, and found ourselves in an unknown position. Our predominant emotion was shame, with the understanding that if we got S&R called on us we would be completely honest about our training (not that our spouses wouldn't be honest for us). We had a paper map but no compass, and were able to navigate to a marked trail with some educated guesswork. In the end, it was a fun adventure, but the shame stuck with us the whole way home.
* note: "bright and sunny day" is the condition that search and rescue teaches one to be the most mindful of. It's where you and everybody else get the most confident, and prepare the least.
I'm surprised you haven't encountered paper maps that are wrong. I had one with a trail that (unbeknownst to me) hadn't been maintained in decades. I followed it to an unmarked cliff and injured myself going around rather instead of backtracking several miles like I should have. Digital maps tend to be much better about information freshness unless you're printing the latest maps from different sources before every trip.
I didn't say I've never encountered an incorrect map, I said they aren't rendered useless by dropping on an ill-positioned rock. You can send digital maps to the printer, and insert them into a ziploc, before leaving your house. I emphasize the ziploc because I have seen paper maps ruined by rain and rivers. And the added heft keeps them from blowing away in a weak gust of wind.
And if you like belts & suspenders and have a laser printer, splurge a little[1]. But still keep your map, compass and pencil in the ziploc.
[1] https://www.riteintherain.com/printer-paper-20-pound#8511-50
I don't know anyone who has a printer capable of printing 7.5 min maps on-demand. That's a job for a print shop. Most SAR happens from day hikes and other light recreation, not multi-day expeditions where you can reasonably justify extensive setup like that.
My recommendation is to take an old phone, make sure it's charged, and throw it in a Ziploc in a back pocket. Then stay on-trail, which you should almost always be doing anyway.
Capable of printing to-scale? No. But I've printed a fair number of USGS 7.5min quads on a standard Brother laser printer. I print them double-sided, with the top half of the map on one side and the bottom half on the other[1]. They fit that way at about 1/2 scale, which is still eminently usable. Perfect for day hikes and other light recreation. And guaranteed not to break when you sit on it in a Ziploc in a back pocket.
Sure, use your phone with offline maps as your primary, but a printed backup map doesn't require anything special or expensive.
[1] With an overlap strip that is printed on both sides, thanks to plakativ[2].
> ...7.5 min maps...
This is the second response in a row where you've read something I wrote and responded to a very specific thing I did not say.
I've had the exact same thing with an OSM map. Organic Maps showed a trail down, but if it was meant to be a trail, it hadn't been used or maintained in at least a century. It was completely irresponsible to go down it, but we did so anyway because otherwise we'd have to backtrack our entire hike. We got home, but it was quite an adventure.
At least in the US, all of the topographic maps are available for free download from the USGS and can be printed at home or at a copy center.
You can also purchase printed copies.
A gallon ziplock bag makes for cheap lamination. So does clear packing tape.
Taxpayers subsidizing free maps for hikers? Expect that access to privatized shortly.
Very practical advice, but there's a few reasons things like this can't make the issue disappear. For example, a topo map could kill an amateur because they don't know how to use it and they might even know this about themselves, and assume that an interactive display with "you are here" is a safer choice. For someone that can read a map, what if it doesn't show trails but an app does? Even people who are reaching for a smart choice and bring their app-map and paper-map can still have the rug pulled out from under them at any time just because they didn't compare the two often enough, then the app somehow fails them and it's too late.
Not everyone is an engineer, and they may simply not be aware that things like reliability / stability / user-control / user-consent for phones/apps/SaaS is a complete joke compared to any other kind of technology. Someone out there probably has a "life alert" app that used to work but has been recently broken because the API to pre-load the "one trick all seniors should know" advertisements recently changed. Someone can't see to dial emergency services because their huge-font-app was removed from the app store/marked as malware, or maybe their flashlight-app doesn't work because a server or cell connectivity went down and it can't phone home telemetry.
All the following things are true at the same time. Backup plans, knowledge, and tactics are good. Victim-blaming is often very tempting/easy. Apps have no doubt saved lives as well. We can still acknowledge issues and try to do better. "Death by GPS" as a recognizable figure of speech should not be a thing. It's no longer a solid bet that "works today" means "unless I change something, it's working tomorrow".. this is bad and is mostly unnecessary. As time goes on advice to avoid technology to avoid associated problems always becomes impractical (good luck throwing away your phone/email to avoid spam) so at some point we have to actually admit and address the problems.
Generally best to have some redundancy there.
My ass has been saved more times by an iPhone compass and offline OrganicMaps than the other way round. Quote the situation a couple of years back where the state issued paper maps were completely wrong and my Suunto compass turned out to likely be a fake one and froze and cracked open overnight. 30km from humans on a mountain range in central asia.
I have never had an iPhone crap out on me I will add. Has completely replaced my dedicated GPS.
The worst thing I've ever seen though is a compass app on Android that won't work if it can't contact the ad server.
I remember years ago in the era of paper maps that very few people took "orienteering" type classes to know how to locate themselves on said maps.