This week YouTube hosted Brandcast 2025 in which it revealed how marketers could make better use of the platform to connect with customers.
A few new so-called innovations were announced at the event but one has caught the attention of the internet – Peak Points. This new product makes use of Gemini to detect “the most meaningful, or ‘peak’, moments within YouTube’s popular content to place your brand where audiences are the most engaged”.
Essentially, YouTube will use Gemini and probably the heatmap generated on YouTube videos by people skipping to popular points, to determine where to place advertising. Anybody who has grown up watching terrestrial television where adverts arrive as a way to build suspense will understand how annoying Peak Points could become.
In the beginning I used OsmAnd for maps, its a bit wonky sometimes but the maps are high quality. Magic Earth fixed the the wonky ness but uses osm maps, is pretty great visually pleasing and can do all sorts of settings like speed assistance, lane assistance. I haven’t used it much but Organic Map looks good too, seems to have a focus on public transportation.
What do you do for calendar sync? I found I had to use an extension like DAVx⁵ to synchronize them to my phone, did you find another way?
I’ll give Magic Earth a go, but osmand is just missing a bunch of stuff I got used to having I guess. The actual map part is fine.
I use DAVx⁵ myself. It’s not ideal aesthetically, but honestly not a thing I worry about.