the biggest problem I have with switching is that Google Maps is a business directory. open street maps is empty where i live. it works okay for navigation, but not so much for finding a coffee.
there are ways to make it easier; it's been gamified:
https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
Available on FDROID.
When my partner stops to play pokemon go, I complete some Open Street Map info quests...
As many have already told you, you can contribute to OSM, I have put in it almost all the establishments in my area (Not at Big area but...). Although soon I have to update them
im on board with the idea in general, but im not going to do this. it would be an endless effort to the benefit of almost nobody. places go up and down so fast here that google maps is often out of date too. it's filled with stale information and im flagging missing places constantly. every digital community in this country is a garbage pile.
the ride share apps here do use open street maps though, and im making corrections to building addresses when i find something isn't right. it's great.
Umm...it benefits loads of people.
On OSM you don't have to just flag something. You can edit it directly, so it leads to more accurate information.
But you can also just flag it if editing is not your cup of tea. Here's a convenient, non-techy tool to add notes for others to use when editing: https://www.onosm.org/
You can contribute them!
There's a pretty barebones editor in Organic Maps, but you can also check out Street Complete and Every door (more advanced and less user friendly, though insanely efficient)
I use Vespucci, it's advanced but still pretty easy if you just want to do basic editing. https://vespucci.io/
P.s. how do you link to an app on fdroid?
Be the change your want to see in the world https://droidify.eu.org/app/?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete&repo_address=https://f-droid.org/archive
Very strange. It doesn't work. I shared directly from the f-droid client droid-ify
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html
Oh weird. That's shared from droid-ify which is an f-droid client.
Here's the proper link https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html
Same issue here. I really like their maps in general, but my local area in OSM is about a decade out of date
Yeah, it's interesting to look through the edit history over the years. With StreetComplete I recently fixed ~8 stores that were many years out of date, during an hour walk.
It's fun to find a real hole-in-the-wall that even google maps doesn't have.
What does the size of the country have to do with it? Which good big and bad small countries are you talking about?
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Most people don't use openstreetmaps on these small countries like with low/medium population it feels like apple maps on there
Can you give an example? Because I've just looked at Luxembourg, Nepal, and Aruba, and they're all littered with named buildings and landmarks. Pyongyang even has a fair bit filled in.
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didnt rlly try it but might try tbh but idk since i see people here where i live use google maps
That kind of contribution seems like a lower level of effort than making changes to source code.
Yeah trying to find anything on any of the competing apps is basically impossible. I mean ffs OSMand literally couldn't do address lookup!
I just recently learned this.
For OsmAnd, go to search, then the categories tab, and then hit "Online Search".
Voila, address lookup.
I have found Organic Map's search to be far better than OSMand. OSMand has far more features though.
Can you also import saved maps from Avenza Maps for Android? I have it as my other maps app
You might have to enable showing apps with other anti-features in f-droid settings.
- It has the map corpus from OpenStreetMap, so one of the best in the world
- It works offline - just download the desired maps onto the device
- That makes it really, really fast. Google Maps is slower
- You can also use it in areas with bad reception. I'm using it for hiking in the woods where there is no cell phone connection available
- I really like the UI - they are f.e. better at displaying house numbers and street names than Google.
- No ads
On the hiking note, it also shows a lot of trails. I used it to navigate to a trail head and was pleasantly surprised to see a rough outline of the trails I would be using plus some others I didn't know were there.
Maybe it's iOS specific but I had to go to a region and download the map to be able to search it, which is not great
Google's maps are decent and can also be downloaded to be offline...? But yeah, it seems like it's a nice alternative, especially if you want to be free from Google's grips.
Same, I have recently installed LineageOS on my phone and was looking for various replacements for Goggle apps. What I really like about OrganicMaps is that it downloads the maps locally, so you can view it even if you aren't connected to the internet.
IIRC At one point Google Maps would let you download a map for browsing, but you couldn't do offline navigation. Don't know if that's still the case.
Organic Maps does the routing on the device.
@yetiftw for routes that don't start with an internet connection? Or just ones where you lose connection part way there?
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I should have really had this information a year ago when I was constantly screenshotting Google Maps, LOL.
The feature looks made ugly on purpose though (compared to organic maps where you can just download the whole country or select more precisely what you want)
Can't we script a complete copy of Google maps data (shops, highways etc) to this? Is the API restricted? Can we run distributed jobs for it? I can spin up some compute if someone is interested in trying this
@MigratingtoLemmy @101 @openstreetmap
No, this is against Google TOS and OpenStreetMap policy on data sources and the Data Working Group will step in and block any accounts doing this to protect the project as a whole.
Organic maps SPECIFICALLY doesn't want that. It would be grounds for them being sued and having to comb through their database and remove any "questionable" material.
It would be the end of the project, they don't have money for that.
Not Organic Maps, that's just the client. The data is OpenStreetMap, more info about imports here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import
@Melatonin No problem 🙂 Organic Maps is a great client for OSM. And doesn't it feel good knowing that by correcting something through Organic Maps you are taking part in a community of 10M users who together created a 2TB xml file map of the whole planet, free for anyone to download? It's one of the miracles of the free libre world.
You seem pretty active with OSM, so I'll propose this here since I don't have time to make it.
OSM is very, very popular with hikers and cyclists, and I'd argue rhey drive a lot of it's use, especially via third-party systems. However, it's one failing is "gravel" roads. While they support many different gravel road types, they admit on their Wiki that use of the proper terms is low.
Given the heavy use of Garmin devices, especially among gravel cyclists, mountain bikers, and bikepackers, where terrain definition is important, it would be outstanding to have an app in the Garmin store for Edge devices that could report the exact terrain type (compacted, dirt, etc) with a button mash as you ride it.
Check out StreetComplete (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete)
It does more than just road surface type, and incorporates location-based OSM editing in a very user-friendly way!
F-Droid link: StreetComplete (OpenStreetMap surveyor app) https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/
Yea, I've used that, but it's a phone app. Riders need a one-touch solution on Garmin (or other bike computers, but Garmin dominates the market right now).
It also doesn't seem to let you edit anything more then a mile away from your physical location. I get that they want accuracy but it's preventing me from editing incorrect information to a place I have just been.
I will add as a narrowboater.
I found towpaths also have this issue with definition of surface.
I am legally blind. (Some vision but bad)
I have a few times tried to add more ditail to areas of towpath that will help the others like me know what to expect before mooring.
Seems anything that improves this will help in your issues as well.
I didn't know about Organic-Maps. I used Osmand, which has a subscription fee for downloading maps.
Thx!
I didn't have to pay for it, installed from F-Droid, and I can download any map I've tried so far. When I'm traveling I like to pre-download the standard map for the whole state if it's one I don't already have installed. It's nice to not have to worry about data / reception.
Overall OsmAnd is a pretty good GPS-map-navigation app, but has several annoyances and bugs. Still better than using Google's app to me. I need to check out Organic maps too
Also nice to download all the Wikipedia data for the area, so you can read about places you visit...again, all without data.
Osmand saved my ass multiple times hiking in very remote locations. Absolutely worth the subscription!
Anything that keeps maps in local storage so you can use GPS while offline is somewhere between very helpful and lifesaving. Sounds like Osmand is in there.
Organic Maps lets you download also. I got it specifically for backpacking because it enabled that. It certainly has been worth the $0. I should probably donate something each trip.
Definetly one of the subscriptions I don't regret as much as others but still a steep cost for my frequency of usage. I need it approx 6 weeks per year and only as backup when traveling/hiking.
A free alternative (simply Osm) is much appreciated.
All of you are invited on !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml
Also checkout the many editing tools, such as https://mapcomplete.org, htpps://streetcomplete.app,...
Every Door
thank you for sharing, definitely the easiest for Android from my research :-)
Note: there is a comparison of editor apps here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_editors
There’s a small learning curve I wish some bothered to understand first. Does this app help? The part of this I don’t like is vacationers leaving useless names like ‘Mango lady’, ‘many street vendors’ for a block, or ‘local restaurant’ since they can’t read the sign as opposed marking up the cuisine type, maybe adding an English description, & leaving the name blank. Nobody expects uploads to be perfect but Bangkok is littered with this noise that makes it hard to follow or find things.
I think EveryDoor requires some relatively deep understanding of OSM before actually being a useful tool. So edits like this should be rare with that tool. Many of the edits like this are from when MapsMe was very popular and suddenly introduced editing, without enough nuance in the process. Bad edits do happen everywhere, you need a good balance between people who data curation and newbies making beginner mistakes. In some places, there's a lack of experienced people maintaining the data.
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It takes effort and knowledge to make good contributions, this app is just a tool to do that.
I can only say I myself try to make valuable contributions, some other people might care less.
Might I recommend Magic Earth?
Organic maps is great, but the search is really finnicky.
Magic Earth has amazing UI, search, it can acts as a dashcam as you travel and that video can pinpoint your place on the map. I'm loving it.
I'm not sure how or why, but Magic Earth has a FAR more complete address list than OSMand or Organic Maps where I live. It must be pulling from another data source as well, OSM doesn't have addresses for several neighborhoods in the city but Magic Earth does.
Would anyone know why that would be?
OSM not having massive chunks of my home city really does leave me with either Google Maps or Magic Earth.
I'd like to know as well actually as I've found the same. Maybe I'm just using Organic Maps wrong? But if I am, then am I wrong or is Organic Maps as Magic Earth works so much more seamlessly. Magic Earth website clearly states it uses OSM.
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Organic maps is great and I wish I could use it more. I commute in a city and traffic data is very important to me when it comes to route planning. It can be the difference between an hour commute and a 15min commute. Due to this, I'm pulled back to using google maps as my default.
Is it not possible to anonymize traffic data so that it can be made available in google maps? I'd gladly contribute a bit of data in order to improve this app. I'd even pay a bit of money for a pro version.
Great app all the same.
Absolutely love organic maps for cycling! It recommendeds sensible routes that are much safer. The only feature I miss (and I know organic maps strives for 100% feature completeness even offline so this would be unlikely to be added) is navigation using public transit in the UK. The national rail app is painfully slow and isn't easy to just search a location and just go, but it does work. Every bus company has their own app too... I haven't found a good replacement yet unfortunately :/
Magic Earth (while not FOSS, it's privacy oriented though) can do this.
There's also Transportr, but AFAIK it's been unmaintained for quite a while now, so it may not work / stop working soon.
Lemmy added an alt text field for image-only posts a few versions ago; it would be nice if more people would use it.
At least this post does link to the mastodon post which it is a screenshot of.
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Organic Maps was put back onto the Play Store the next day day: https://organicmaps.app/news/2024-08-18/good-news-organic-maps-appeared-again-in-the-google-play-store/
Rudo's tool sounds cool.
I've done those conversions by hand before, just deleting irrelevant Google junk out of the KML file to import it to OsmAnd~ because I planned my route on the desktop Google Earth app (3D is cool) and exported it to KML. After some edits it usually will import to OsmAnd on the phone
Google maps is the last vestige of Google that I use. I was never a Google search user and I only use Gmail for 'official' stuff.
So yeah, I want this to work.
I left GoogleMaps a while ago, it worked fine for me. The only part of Google I can't leave is Play Store. Aurora might be the best alternative there.