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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

101–110 of 493 posts

Re: Organic Maps

#101
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…

Off-topic, but I find it hard to believe that throttling Wifi could possibly encourage empathy. That sounds so petty to me, it's like removing printer toner and hoping that the office banter about the dysfunctional printer may somehow forge better team-spirit. Or, putting the stapler away so people go looking for it...

I think they probably mean empathy for users on slow Internet connections rather than for fellow staff. Basically making you test your software on a slow connection once a week.

Re: Organic Maps

#102

Started using Organic Maps during the pandemic, this is the app that weaned me out of Google Maps. At the moment I only really use Google Maps to check opening times of certain shops. Also way better routing for cyclists than Google maps.

Do you use the search functionality a lot, and is it giving you the results you want? And if so, do you have any tips on how to write search queries? I love Organic Maps, but when I try to search, I think I find what I'm looking for about 1 out of 5 times.

Reliable search is just generally hard to implement for OSM, as it's highly chaotic. There's no single schema forced upon everyone. The same feature can be tagged in multiple ways, which are dependent on the consensus between mappers, country/jurisdiction, culture, particular mapper preference etc. This is especially relevant for addresses and businesses.

Re: Organic Maps

#103
post #94
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless your coworkers find it it absolutely normal to design a system that needs pulling half of the Internet for every build, because they do have a gigabit connection.

Developers should use old hardware and slow connections, they would make much better apps.

Re: Organic Maps

#104
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maps.me got forked because it was sold from the original company to a new one (IIRC more than once). The most recent company to purchase Maps.me is in crypto, so their focus has been on e.g. adding a crypto wallet – yes, a crypto wallet in a maps app – instead of actually developing the app further for maps users.

Was Maps.me open source before, or did they somehow manage to make it open source just before it got bought by the cryptobros? That would be a pretty great move IMO.

I believe that it was always open-source.

Re: Organic Maps

#105
post #94
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are not alone. The last time a home internet upgrade felt really significant to me was going from 2mbit to 8mbit. Everything else has been luxury. Though I'll be signing up for ~160 or ~1000 as soon as the new cables the street was recently dug up to put in place are connected, I like my luxuries!

I do still notice upstream improvements though. Both those old 2mbit and 8mbit connections were 256kbit up, and I currently have "up to 17mbit" which is [quick check of router logs] ~11mbit ATM - that can be limiting for backups or when wanting to share video or HQ photos with a large group. So the FTTP upgrade _might_ be justifiable as more than pure luxury.

Re: Organic Maps

#106

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 love OSMand but I can't figure out why it announces speed bumps when I'm in walking and biking mode but not when in car mode :) But it's still the best navigation app I've used.

Re: Organic Maps

#107
post #92

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.

No need to be defensive, it's ok if it's less powerful, I just need to know what I get.

Re: Organic Maps

#108
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…

Off-topic, but I find it hard to believe that throttling Wifi could possibly encourage empathy. That sounds so petty to me, it's like removing printer toner and hoping that the office banter about the dysfunctional printer may somehow forge better team-spirit. Or, putting the stapler away so people go looking for it...

I'd gather its empathy for the customers with those constraints, as in, if the product you're building is having issues in this context then you may rethink perf of this or that feature.

Re: Organic Maps

#109
post #99
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 seein…

It is quite valid for one property to have multiple street addresses and therefore postcodes. It could genuinely have frontage in two streets, or it could be the result of joining two properties in the same street that originally had different postcodes – many long streets have multiple postcodes along their length¹.

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[1] For example even a not-very-long street I used to live on, Alma Terrace in York, has three postcodes: YO10 4DJ on one side of most of it, YO10 4DL on the other side of that, and YO10 4DQ for both sides of the part between that and Fulford Road. I suspect from the street layout that the third code is due to that part of the road being added later, or originally not having anything on it needing a postcode.

Re: Organic Maps

#110
post #100

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'…

The amount of mistakes Google makes in the Netherlands when it comes to bikes is mind-blowing. If you don't know the area or manually check the maps it takes you trough a lot more car places that it should do.
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