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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

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Re: Organic Maps

#241

Post by bertil »

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,…

It’s pretty much right on the money actually…

Our users in less digitally connected countries were insanely patient. The main problem was less the time than the cost, actually. The app required updates that were enormous. The cost to download them using the most common pay-as-you-go services in India represented a month of the local salary for day laborers… That information got hammered until developers learned to be more parsimonious.

I never heard anyone suggest that FAANG engineers had to forgo their monthly wage to download the test version of the app, but that probably would have triggered their empathy a little too much.

Re: Organic Maps

#242

Post by euroderf »

euroderf wrote: post #6
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.

For offline use I've been quite happy with Maps.me (also OSM-based) but it sounds like Organic Maps is worth a try.

OK, Organic Maps looks great. But how the heck do I transfer to it all my bookmarks from Maps.me ?

Re: Organic Maps

#243

Post by threemux »

A fantastic app that has saved me a few times when I didn't have service. I know they're actively working on Android Auto support and I'm eagerly awaiting it!

Re: Organic Maps

#244

Post by bertil »

Tee3993 wrote: post #45
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…

Google Maps has pretty good support for offline maps. Select rectangular area, download, it expires after year. I am in Europe, maybe you have different copyright on data?

The support got better: downloading is good. It should be usable now, but there are basic things that are not supported, like searching for something or finding a path. I typically don’t need to search: I know where for things are, but there aren't other ways to mark something on the map: favorites and stars don’t appear consistently, and pointing at things is completely useless when logged-in and disabled when off-line. So much of it feels like it was never tested.

My main issue is that there should be a way to say, “Keep this journey on screen until I explicitly delete it, with a confirmation model.” I’m assuming that’s what “Pin it” is meant to do, but in practice, I occasionally see the path I last searched when I reopen my phone and map; I never see a pinned journey again if anything happens: rotate the phone, a quick switch to another app, the screen goes dark…

Re: Organic Maps

#245

Post by rqtwteye »

wombat-man wrote: post #179
rqtwteye wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The support is terrible. You can only choose a rectangle with the same proportions as your screen and the allowed size is too small for a trip in lots of areas of the US. Like a lot of software there are restrictions that make no sense and are extremely user unfriendly.

I think now you can search for a city or something and download the offline map

You can. But you can’t download a large region like a whole state which makes long road trips a pain.

Apple Maps is even worse because it has no offline mode at all.

Re: Organic Maps

#246

Post by mezod »

Looked awesome until I saw there's no satellite imagery, I cannot get lost in the middle of the mountains with so little reference points :(

Re: Organic Maps

#248

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

mcv wrote: post #223
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also it struggles with street names and encourages you to only type a town, which isn't very useful. Oh, good spot. Fixed. OSM geocoding is better than it used to be - I used to just say "town" because streetnames were partial, but they're pretty good now. If you have a start and endpoint that should use Sarphatistraat but don't, I'm all ears. (It's my site!)

That's an amazingly quick fix! Try "Feike de Boerlaan" to "Vondelpark". I would expect the trip to take the Czaar Peterstraat and then the Sarphatistraat, but instead it takes the Panamalaan, Zeeburgerdijk, Mauritskade, and only switches to the Sarphatistraat at the Weesperplein, which I think is also the point where the Sarphatistraat changes from a bike street to a regular street with a bike lane. Although it later…

Really interesting test case - thanks!

cycle.travel's scoring for the two routes differs by 0.4% so it's very close. In OSM data terms, the challenge is that there's no particular special tagging for the Sarphatistraat - it just gets classed as a "cycleway", same as the route along Mauritskade. Plus there's a couple of very slight advantages for the Panamalaan (which is tagged as part of a designated longer-distance bike route) and the Zeeburgerdijk/Mauritskade (which are beside water so get a scenic uplift).

I might look at doing some Amsterdam-specific routing tweaks: I doubt the longer-distance bike route consideration should be relevant in this case, for example.

Re: Organic Maps

#249

Post by gniv »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #68
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.

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.

There is no UI for opening hours in Organic Maps afaict. I think that's part of the complaint.

Re: Organic Maps

#250

Post by ihaveajob »

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 feel like nobody in the Google Maps uses a bike for commuting or other daily life purposes. If they did, they wouldn't route me through the most dangerous, fast traffic street in my neighborhood, and instead they would choose the adjacent bike boulevard. Apple Maps does this much better, even though they've sent me to the wrong side of town a few times.

From my early tests, Organic Maps also sends you down dangerous routes, so I'll use cautiously.

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