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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

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Re: Organic Maps

#91

Post by darkwater »

BlackLotus89 wrote: post #88
darkwater wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took the time to go through the whole thread. Your tone was pretty aggressive from the start and throughout the whole conversation. On the developer's side yeah, they did minimize the issue at the beginning and then eventually modified how it works to increase privacy (rotating the UUID every 3 months, permitting to disable it anyway, clearly state it in the TOS etc). You are still downloading a tons of data from t…

Where does it sound aggressive? I read the whole thread as well and was more astounded that harmless messages were marked as "abusive". Maybe if you read into it he sounds a little pissed > It seems unlikely that this is an accident. > It appears that this spyware tracking feature was added by @vshcherb (Victor Shcherb) back in 2015 and has been leaking users' data and travel history (via client IP geolocation) to th…

> but to be honest there was a hidden tracking feature for many years and he only called it by its name and didn't get aggressive in any form.

The alleged "calling by its name" is the whole point. You are already judging something as ill-intended from minute 0. That's pretty aggressive in my book.

Re: Organic Maps

#92

Post by izacus »

elcapitan wrote: post #66

Does this support custom map styles? OsmAnd has the option to create custom xml styles for certain use cases (which I find interesting for non-standard uses).

Nope, it's meant to be simple to use not a kitchen sink app like OsmAnd.

Re: Organic Maps

#93

Post by Freak_NL »

palata wrote: post #82
Leo_Verto wrote: post #49

Organic Maps really nails the use case for a minimalistic, no-nonsense mapping app with great UX design. Whereas OsmAnd tries to accommodate all use cases with full configurability, which results in a mess of nested options menus, OM goes for reasonable defaults and short menu paths. Unfortunately that minimalism comes with some downsides. While OM has a great metro map, it doesn't show bus lines (which would probabl…

I use both Organic Maps and OsmAnd, I see both your descriptions as features: - Organic Maps is minimalistic, easy, great for what it does. - OsmAnd does everything. Whenever I want to do something more advanced that is not in Organic Maps (typically I like the GPX stuff for hiking, or the ski maps, etc), I turn to OsmAnd. I just need both.

Same here. Although I also keep both around from the perspective of an OpenStreetMap contributor and mapper. OrganicMaps is a bit spartan at times, but it has its place.

Re: Organic Maps

#94

Post by Maxion »

lionkor wrote: post #43
bertil wrote: post #40

I genuinely want to know what lead Google to not support Maps offline properly. It’s truly staggering how, even when I do everything I can to say: save this journey, don’t delete the map around it, don’t delete the journey, just passively show me where I am next to it, it will gleefully delete everything. I once met their lead designer (who had just changed to work at another FAANG) and… boy was that not a conversati…

This will be mega off-topic, but: > throttled wifi every Wednesday to encourage empathy As much as slow internet hampered my productivity, I used to have 15 mbit/s download speed until very recently (Germany is behind developing countries, of course, in terms of anything internet), it was good to experience. Before that, when I was living in the countryside, I had 500 KB/s. I know exactly how painful downloading 10,…

Am I just old if I as a developer think that 10mbit/s is plenty enough? I could probably do with 1mbit/s and still be about as productive as I am now.

Re: Organic Maps

#95

Post by jesterson »

bertil wrote: post #40

I genuinely want to know what lead Google to not support Maps offline properly. It’s truly staggering how, even when I do everything I can to say: save this journey, don’t delete the map around it, don’t delete the journey, just passively show me where I am next to it, it will gleefully delete everything. I once met their lead designer (who had just changed to work at another FAANG) and… boy was that not a conversati…

> I genuinely want to know what lead Google to not support Maps offline properly

Very simple answer - they want to know everything you do online. As Google Maps is provided for free, you are the product. Convenience of the product (you) is not a priority whatsoever.

> designers like to say that users are always right?

It's just smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately IT breeds a number of people who have ignorant position they have the right to tell people how they should interact, conveniently forgetting the service will be used by all groups of people, not just IT geeks.

Re: Organic Maps

#96

Post by botanical »

I'm currently using Magic Earth, any major differences between the two? I realise this one's open source, but I really like Magic Earth's live traffic and recording.

Re: Organic Maps

#97

Post by Freak_NL »

tangus wrote: post #18
baz00 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic maps is also 100% free unlike OSMAnd.

OsmAnd+ installed from FDroid is 100% free AFAIK.

On F-Droid that is OsmAnd~, and it is indeed the free equivalent of OsmAnd+ from Google's app store.

Re: Organic Maps

#98

Post by Freak_NL »

dzogchen wrote: post #77

Organic Maps is the best for biking and walking, Google Maps has left me hanging so many times there.

It depends on the area of course, but many hiking routes are indeed kept meticulously up to date in OpenStreetMap (and thus OrganicMaps). Sometimes even by the regional maintainer of those paths (like in Northern Italy).

(That said, anyone hiking in the wild should always consider a paper map in addition to a digital one. Especially in mountainous terrain.)

Re: Organic Maps

#99

Post by tazjin »

bertil wrote: post #40

I genuinely want to know what lead Google to not support Maps offline properly. It’s truly staggering how, even when I do everything I can to say: save this journey, don’t delete the map around it, don’t delete the journey, just passively show me where I am next to it, it will gleefully delete everything. I once met their lead designer (who had just changed to work at another FAANG) and… boy was that not a conversati…

I had a bizarre encounter when working there, also Maps related. I lived in the UK at the time and my post code just didn't exist in Google Maps. I did some digging, and found out that in fact no post codes in the UK had been added in quite some time.

Eventually I found out why: There was some lead dev on Maps, who refused to allow new imports of UK post code data because he thought they were "wrong". They were seeing data with multiple post codes for the same building!

For the record: This is valid in the UK, as there's a maximum number of households per post code or something like that.

Not sure how that ended eventually, left a few years ago, but I just checked and those post codes now exist.

Re: Organic Maps

#100

Post by mcv »

vintagedave wrote: post #55

This was the first time I’d heard of the app, but due to comments in this thread I downloaded it. * Website, ethos: straightforward. “Old internet” vibes, love it. They seem very active, have a presence on every platform, very impressive * The app seems very nice. Simple clear UI. Lots of features. I need to experiment for more than a few minutes but I get the impression it could replace Google Maps for me, especiall…

I've had it for a while, but I don't use it nearly enough. I still rely on Google Maps for most things, until Google Maps lets me down. Which it does mostly when I'm on vacation.

Although now that I think about it, Google Maps lets me down on vacation because I'm in unfamiliar territory and I have no idea how to correct for the mistakes it makes. When I'm at home (in Amsterdam) it makes plenty of mistakes too, but I'm familiar with them and the are, so I can easily correct for it.

For example, Google really dislikes the Sarphatistraat for some reason. It's a bike street: basically a gigantic bike path that also allows cars, but bikes have right of way. It's one of the most important bike thoroughfares in Amsterdam, so of course you should always take it. But for some reason, Google always prefers to send me along the Stadhouderskade, which is part of the centrumring for cars, one of the major car thoroughfares, parallel to the Sarphatistraat, and it does have a separate bike path, but you're still in car fumes. Also, it's slightly longer.

There are plenty of other bike routes it doesn't know. I should really try to get used to using Organic Maps on my bike from now on. It's excellent on bike and pedestrian infrastructure, including hiking trails, things to see, etc. Many years ago when I first learned about OSM, I was amazed about the level of detail I got when I zoomed in on Artis, the Amsterdam Zoo. You don't get that kind of detail on Google Maps. I really should use it more.

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