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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

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Re: Organic Maps

#231

Post by lioeters »

gorbypark wrote: post #160

I use Organic Maps for hiking specifically because it's not a "hiking app". There are way too many apps out there that expect you to just hike a trail that someone else has already hiked. Want to combine intersecting trails? You're out of luck. Want to use a trail you didn't explicitly pre-download without a data connection? You're out of luck But with Organic Maps, I find it has all the trails (at least on two separ…

Just wanted to add my experience with Organic Maps.

I used it extensively this year, mainly because it has hiking and bicycle paths that are not marked at all on Google Maps.

It works off-line. This is so valuable to me, especially when hiking.

One time I was lost deep in a mountain/forest, and the app found a GPS signal to show my location and direction, saving me from unexpectedly spending the night (for which I was not prepared). I suppose any map app is capable of this, but I was so glad.

It's also capable of giving directions.

And, unlike Google Maps, I can trust that the app is not collecting and misusing my location data.

Of course, as an open-source project, there are some rough edges. I have GMaps installed just in case, and on a few occasions I had to resort to using it. But I was pleasantly surprised by Organic Maps, so far it's my favorite mobile app for maps.

Re: Organic Maps

#232

Post by maze-le »

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…

This is definitly my favourite map app. The offline features are amazing and it has a great UI and operability. Routing for bicycles could be better, I ended up in the middle of the forest without clear path the other day, but this is more of an issue with old OSM datasets than with the app itself.

Re: Organic Maps

#233

Post by emaro »

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

You can do it directly in Organic Maps as well.

Re: Organic Maps

#234

Post by johannes1234321 »

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.

It wasn't always. It started as MapsWithMe by a swiss company, which gave it away for free with a pro version (for which I paid), then mail.ru took it over and made it opensource (while all my build attempts failed) and then a new owner later added tons of ads and stuff into it and made it closed. Then some people forked the slightly older open source version.

Re: Organic Maps

#235

Post by harabat »

prometheon1 wrote: post #78
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #64

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.

A workaround I saw a few months ago on HN: for both Organic Maps and OSMand, you can use Acastus to search for something and then open the result in the maps app (+ share the broken query with Organic Maps, as requested by the founder).

Acastus-Photon (An online address/POI search for navigation apps) https://f-droid.org/packages/name.gdr.acastus_photon/

Re: Organic Maps

#236

Post by bertil »

sanderjd wrote: post #214
red_admiral wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK system is that the pair ("number", postcode) must be unique for any postal address; "number" is often a house number but things like "1A" or even names like "Whitehall" are allowed too. Further, as mentioned, there is a limited amount of "number" that can be associated with any one postcode (currently 100 for new codes, but some legacy postcodes may have more), so for a long enough street, the postcode will ch…

Sounds like a great system! US "zip codes" are pretty useless by comparison.

I’ve had to deal with postcodes in too many countries (logistic company), and the UK system is by far the best: dense, standard, somewhat intuitive, code-correcting, specific enough (several dozen households) that if you have a delivery, the recipient knows where the van is standing angrily. Documentation is excellent (relative to the UK government's digital service already very high standards), and you have APIs for all sorts of relevant conversions.

The only issues are what OC mentioned: some people don’t know a large building (50+ flats) can have several codes, and they are weekly updates because… ::magic dust:: construction!

The worst? Dubai: three inconsistent systems of varying length without any sense, standard, or redeeming features. The city road network is apparently even worse, so I guess those things work hand in hand?

The funniest? One person once joked that people in Ireland were not using postcodes, just the name of the nearby pub, which can get confusing as they often have the same name, so you also have to say the name of the second nearest pub…

I thought was funny, but I wasn’t sure that was a joke. Apparently, that was still true at the time? I saw a lot of discussion about “Introducing PostCodes in Ireland” and avoided those meetings so as not to sound clueless. We used Google Maps for a while during the transition.

Re: Organic Maps

#237

Post by teddyh »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #127
Aachen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by searching for their own Facebook page At that point I'd rather open up Google and give them the data point that someone is interested in this store at this time (to make these crowdedness plots) than provide Facebook with my data ._. If they have an own website, sure, but a Facebook page? I'm not whitelisting those IP addresses for my browser to be able to visit that. This is why I always add the website as the…

Because a Facebook page is the business’s own advertisement, you can add the opening hours displayed there straight to OpenStreetMap. (Google’s information obviously cannot be copied into OSM, and besides, sometimes its opening hours are guessed from visitor data instead of added by the business itself.) > This is why I always add the website as the most important field for a POI It has been over a decade now since m…

> It has been over a decade now since most physical-retail businesses began giving up on maintaining their own websites, using only Facebook pages instead, unless they are part of large chains.

This was indeed a trend a few years ago, but it is not true anymore, in my personal experience. Even tiny shops, if they are only a bit more technologically knowledgable than average, tend to have their own web page.

Re: Organic Maps

#238

Post by koziserek »

Fantastic app.

To reach perfection for me, it would need:

- to allow storing my POIs in some sync-able location (e.g. Nextcloud folder)

- to improve rendering and reach same level of beauty as mapy.cz / Windy has...

Re: Organic Maps

#239

Post by chickenWing »

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…

Seeing all the praise in this thread, I downloaded the app, and I must admit I'm disappointed and confused at the effusion, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I tried a very basic task of getting driving directions to a specific address and that doesn't seem to be supported. For some streets, it will give me directions to the street as a whole, but that's not useful for long streets. Other streets don't seem to exist in the map.

Then I typed in a simple query: "ice cream", and the closest result listed was 4 miles away, but there are several ice cream shops within less than a mile. Other business listings are out of date or inaccurate.

Re: Organic Maps

#240

Post by tome »

Symbiote wrote: post #230
sanderjd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great system! US "zip codes" are pretty useless by comparison.

As an example, with a postcode "N1C 4DN" we soon learn that means North London (the N), the innermost district (the 1) and the innermost bit of that (the C). Stick it in https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode and we have 5 addresses to choose from. There are usually 10 to 30 — if you work in a large office it probably has a postcode just for that office, for houses you share with 20-30 or so others. (Very large bu…

> with a postcode "N1C 4DN" we soon learn that means North London (the N), the innermost district (the 1)

N1 is innermost, yes, but N2 onwards are sorted alphabetically, and N1C isn't really more "inner" than N1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_postal_district

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