What are some reasons as to why I would want to use this over, say, OSMAnd?
this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Organic maps looks beautiful, osmand is kinda bland
I like OSMAnd's visuals, very simple and configurable. OM seems to just be material design. Subjective of course!
To each their own I suppose :)
OsmAnd may have lots of features but it's heavy and clunky. Organic Maps on the other hand is quite light and very fast. If you don't need the some features OsmAnd has, Organic Maps is a way better experience.
It is way way lighter weight and is overall a better experience. I use osmand for routing because the voice is much better tuned (OM just says barely-useful things like "turn left" instead of "turn left at Broadway". I think both have their uses. If the voice was better I would use OM exclusively.
Organic Map’s voice turning instructions were just recently updated to include the street name (at least in the iOS TestFlight, not sure if it’s in the official release yet). This was something that was preventing me from fully switching over but since this change it is much more usable imo
Oh yay! Happy times. The fdroid version doesn't have that yet but I look forward to the update.
I see, that's very useful for lower end devices then. If I ever need voice, I'll stick to OSMAnd then for now.
Both are great but I find Organic better for searches and has a simpler UI (so a good replacement for google maps) but OsmAnd has more technical features and better for using offline, importing GPS tracks etc. I use Organic maps in the car and OsmAnd for hiking, cycling and sharing GPS coordinates.
What are some reasons as to why I would want to use this over, say, OSMAnd?
Osmand isn't fully free software. Some parts are under CC Non-Commercial license that forbids derivatives to make life harder for potential forks: https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/blob/master/LICENSE#L39 That's both against the Open Source Definition and Free Software.
Not that big of a deal to me personally, the app is still brilliant and open to the community. But given the community this is posted in I understand the concern and alternatives like Organic Maps are great for that.
I use both all the time. Organic Maps rendering and navigation feels snappier, even with 2.5D support, and less cluttered, but since I do contribute to OpenStreetMap, OsmAnd is unmatched for editing and access to power tools like up-to-date data, GPS tracking, PDI editions, etc.
Unfortunately, in my country the map is not as complete as the proprietary options, so, using OsmAnd is more practical for me. As a regular user, though, I'd prefer Organic Maps.
@selokichtli @warm Ever used #StreetComplete?
f-droid.org/de/packages/de.wes…
It is really helpfull If you wish enhancing OSM
I actually have used it. It's very thorough but I find out more useful for areas where mapping is already good, while the areas I contribute to are not as well mapped. Every Door is also a great tool!
@selokichtli
Streetcomplete meanwhile has an overlay for POIs also.
This Overlay is may not that detailed but after you placed a new poi the streetcomplete usual feature ask for details.
I wish Organic Maps had up-to-date maps. If there is any possibility for that please let me know!
Take StreetComplete with you when you're out and do pokemon-style quests while at the same time improve the map of the area you're in.
It's very fun and quite addictive, and the data you're providing is open source so it's not free labour for some huge company.
Oh, I very much know that! But only on OsmAnd I can see those changes being applied a few hours later instead of a month later.
If the maps in your area are incomplete, you have the power to change that by editing OpenStreetMap. Organic Maps updates its maps about once a month by pulling data from OpenStreetMap.
Oh, I very much know that! But only on OsmAnd I can see those changes being applied a few hours later instead of a month later.
Define "up-to-date"?
OsmAnd allows me to see changes in hours, for OrganicMaps I have to wait a full month.
I think this is to prevent organicmaps users from DDOSing the OSM servers by constantly streaming map data from them
Well, we need a better system then
I'm honestly fine with it.
Saying "we need a better system" without understanding why we have the current system we do is not helpful.
I work with hosting services and resource constraints every day at work.
Someone like Google can give you instantaneous updates because they have billions of dollars and can host data farms across the globe for billions of users to access whenever they feel like it.
OpenStreetMaps likely doesn't have this kind of funding and gets by on what they have. They are running fine now on the small amount of users they have, but if the usage suddenly 10x'd or 100x'd overnight from a popular app like Organic Maps switching to realtime downloads straight from the tap, the servers would ignite (not literally, I hope).
What I would like you to do is draft up a proposal for how to overcome the financial and technical hurdles needed to allow a much larger userbase to constantly hit the OSM service. This would be a much better use of your time. Once you're done, submit it to the Organic Maps and OpenStreetMaps staff to try to get it moving forward, or at least talked about.
Doesn't do bus routes. Guess I'm still stuck with Google.
if you're in one of the areas it covers, Offi is pretty solid Offi https://f-droid.org/packages/de.schildbach.oeffi/
Citymapper is also not bad but the coverage is v limited and it's not open source
Bus routes should be there. But it does not do routing for buses if that is what you are after?
Yeah, basically. The most useful thing Google Maps does is work out which buses and transfers you have to take to get between one location and another, and until I can find a replacement for that I'm stuck with it.
Which country are you in? In Germany the DB navigator does that much better than google.
Best osm map!
Is this what Komoot uses?
I've been so impressed with the pathways etc, it's amazing
Komoot uses openstreetmap, yes. Organic maps is a different client for openstreetmap.
Will Android auto be able to use this?
Yes it works on android auto in my car anyway