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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

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Re: Organic Maps

#111

Post by pulpfictional »

darkwater wrote: post #53
sneak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSMAnd tracks users using a secret supercookie by default because the developer wants metrics. This is done without consent. The defensiveness of the developer with regards to such unethical tracking means that I will never use any software they ever release. https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues/15058 Organic Maps does not, and should be supported instead.

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…

It's possible to disable it now in the app settings as the last message in the issue states. The app does enable it and telemetry by default without any warning which I think is wrong.

Re: Organic Maps

#112

Post by Aachen »

baz00 wrote: post #5
dbrgn wrote: post #3

Organic Maps is less powerful than OSMAnd (on Android), but it's much more straightforward and easy to use. It's the go-to app I recommend to all casual map users that want offline maps.

Organic maps is also 100% free unlike OSMAnd.

So how do they finance the servers from which you download the sizable map files, if there's no "pay to unlock unlimited downloads" like in OsmAnd?

Re: Organic Maps

#113

Post by zikduruqe »

baz00 wrote: post #2

I cannot really express how much praise I have for Organic Maps. It has got me out of the mire a couple of times due to the complete offline capability and paper maps being completely wrong. The OSM base layer is better than a lot of native maps out there. Not only that, you can search for a toilet almost anywhere, including in the middle of nowhere in central Asia, and it found one!

As a cyclist, I use Organic Maps to add drinking water sources, shelters, repair stations, fix biking routes and lanes using just a mobile app to update OSM when I am out and about.

Re: Organic Maps

#114

Post by raybb »

mcv wrote: post #100
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'…

I recently moved to Amsterdam and I find Google maps biking directions are often wrong or just a bit worse than organic maps. But also when organic maps it wrong (like one time it though there was a nice connecting sidewalk that no longer existed) it was super easy to go edit on OSM and next time I'll get the right directions.

My one wish was the OSM had a great app for discovering POI or reviews. Like something that can show me all the bookstores around but with a little extra human touch on if it's nice to sit at or mostly used books or something like this.

Re: Organic Maps

#115

Post by Aachen »

onetimeacc wrote: post #20
baz00 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic maps is also 100% free unlike OSMAnd.

I can get OsmAnd~ from FDroid for free.

You can also download map files from the server manually via, e.g., a web browser and get unlimited downloads that way. Don't need to pay for the standard functionality no matter where you downloaded the apk.

OsmAnd is free-as-in-beer if you want it to be, though imo that's not fair to the developers unless you truly can't afford a few euros (which can be, no judgement, especially in countries with lower incomes or high income disparity).

Re: Organic Maps

#116

Post by raybb »

d4f0 wrote: post #41
hnben wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion what is the most important feature missing in organic maps (compared to OSMAnd)?

Android Auto compatibility. Although I think it's a planned feature.

Yeah they're actively working on it. Though apple car play is out and works!

If anyone knows android dev maybe you can checkout one of these smaller issues they're having.

https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/4096

Re: Organic Maps

#117

Post by tazjin »

dspillett wrote: post #109
tazjin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. --- [1] For example even a not-very-long street I used to live on, Alma Terrace in York, has three po…

In London what ends up happening is that many buildings are so large (e.g. St. George's Wharf[0]) that the household count restriction ends up with multiple codes being allocated.

[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/St._Geor...

Re: Organic Maps

#118

Post by raybb »

Vinnl wrote: post #71
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can often find opening times of shops by searching for their own Facebook page instead of using Google Maps. Moreover, you can add business’ opening hours to OpenStreetMap so that other people in future will see the opening hours in Organic Maps and other OSM-based maps. For a programming-savvy crowd like HN, the syntax of OSM’s opening-hours tag is pretty straightforward.

> you can add business’ opening hours to OpenStreetMap And by far the easiest way to do this, if you have an Android phone, is to use the beautiful StreetComplete app: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme

Street complete may be a bit more beginner friendly but if you just need to update hours or want to add details to several stores quickly everydoor is easier to me

https://every-door.app/

Re: Organic Maps

#119

Post by dvdkon »

milliams wrote: post #104
palata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember them promising to open-source it early on and then waiting at least a few months for the code. At the time I was jaded and thought they'd go back on the promise, but I'm grateful they didn't. It's the most polished FLOSS map app.

Re: Organic Maps

#120

Post by gaazoh »

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 agree, including other guided transit (trams, urban gondolas...) on the metro layer would greatly improve public transit routing.

But bus routes are a harder problem to integrate, especially in larger cities. In Paris, there are more than 200 bus routes (more than 1000 including the greater suburbs), map readability would take a probably big hit if they were displayed on the map, or at least it would require a lot of care to do it right. A some larger cities also have a night service for busses, with routes differing from the day busses, handling those properly is also an issue.

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