Live data from Hacker News

CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

comaps.app

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#51

Tangential, but does anyone know if an app exists that that the video feed of your phone with the GPS loc and reads the signs from the road and compare it to OSM to update it if necessary? Let’s be clear, in the end I use Waze for routing due to the traffic updates, but I see sometimes outdated speed limits and know OSM is one of its sources.

Looks like a glue-together narrow-purpose kind of app that AI is relatively good at producing.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#52
One of the main things that keeps me from using essentially all OSM-based mapping apps as my primary is that search seems incredibly bad. I can't blend city and name, road and category, can't usually filter by features or open time, and results are almost always something like:

    - a result 500 feet away that sounds nothing like what you searched for
    - a result 23 miles away that shares one word but nothing else
    - a result 572 miles away that has a business name that contains exactly what was searched
    - ... nowhere is there an exact full-name match that is 1.3 miles away, which can easily be found by exploring the map
Are there any apps that do this better? Android and desktop (e.g. linux) ideally. I'd love to use them more, but I've had endless problems using them. Good map data is kinda useless if it can't be retrieved, and trying to work around it by panning around and manually saving a hundred or so favorites really kinda sucks.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#53

I use CoMaps, it works great. You get notified in the app to download the updated maps you selected every 2 weeks or so. Could be wildly different than that, just what I notice. It's timing estimates are often 5-15 minutes off Apple Maps, which I find accurate, on ~two hour drives, but I imagine it depends on the traffic. To improve OpenStreetMap, which CoMaps uses as the data source, I use StreetComplete[1]–it puts…

I have been suspicious that streetcomplete is funded by intelligence agencies who want to increase the amount of OSINT avalible.

any OS INT we contribute can be by definition used by intel agencies. such is the way of the world.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#54

I use CoMaps, it works great. You get notified in the app to download the updated maps you selected every 2 weeks or so. Could be wildly different than that, just what I notice. It's timing estimates are often 5-15 minutes off Apple Maps, which I find accurate, on ~two hour drives, but I imagine it depends on the traffic. To improve OpenStreetMap, which CoMaps uses as the data source, I use StreetComplete[1]–it puts…

Do you know if you can add hiking trails using StreetComplete? I noticed some trails are missing in my area and I would like to contribute

If you are in the U.S. please each out to OSMUS, they are amazing and can connect you with trail mapping resources. There is a vibrant community of folks keeping our trails mapped!

https://openstreetmap.us/

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#56

While I do use mapping programs for directions, I more often use them for a more accurate estimate of time and traffic density. I haven't looked very hard, but I haven't seen any OpenStreetMap data or equivalent that shows "Real" travel times and traffic density.

Indeed, because gleaning telemetry data from millions of active users isn't a map applications normal intended use-case.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#57

Great for hiking and sharing path. So nice to be able to do that locally and just send a .gpx file

I tried a TON of hiking apps and this is the best free one hands down.

Being able to download maps, tap to set destination, and see elevation all for free makes it top tier.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#58
post #52

One of the main things that keeps me from using essentially all OSM-based mapping apps as my primary is that search seems incredibly bad. I can't blend city and name, road and category, can't usually filter by features or open time, and results are almost always something like: - a result 500 feet away that sounds nothing like what you searched for - a result 23 miles away that shares one word but nothing else - a re…

Open source? Not that I've found. I use HERE WeGo for searching and driving, and CoMaps for walking around.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#59
post #30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue with OrganicMaps is that the search isn't very good. It really struggles to find my destination sometimes. That's the one thing I'm afraid Google will always be better at.

It doesn't take so much to enable a good server search on top of OSM + openaddresses. Local search will always be slow and bad. But server search doesn't need that much. It's just that OS initiatives are severely understaffed. OS apps that have a Photon instance are already rare to find. Let's not talk about having an Overpass instance... What is very hard to reproduce is Google's place review data. It's golden to en…

> What is very hard to reproduce is Google's place review data.

fake anyways (quite easy to get negative comments deleted), and even for bad reviews.

Best look elsewhere or not at all.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#60

This is what I use in my main GrapheneOS profile. I still have a dedicated profile for Google Maps though as I still have not been able to give up their greater datasets (i.e. traffic) in all cases. Decent app though. I saw someone here mention proprietary code but I wouldn't worry about it, just install the F-Droid version. That's why I use F-Droid - to guarantee I don't get proprietary blobs.

HERE WeGo does traffic, if you want to ditch Google Maps.
Post reply on HN