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OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

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Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#31

Post by wtallis »

RunningDroid wrote: post #15
wtallis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the nautical navigation work fine when canoeing on rivers and streams where you're following linear features on the map. What it lacks is the ability to plot a sensible course across a polygon of open water.

Rumor has it that routers have the same issue with highway areas so best practice is to add a "spine" to them https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:area:highway#Routers https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Area_highway/ma...

The presence of such spines in open bodies of water just makes nautical routes come out particularly stupid, where the route presented calls for you to immediately go to that spine and travel along it, unnecessarily lengthening the route.

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#32

Post by ndriscoll »

snozolli wrote: post #21
yaomtc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Settings > Driving > Navigation settings > Route parameters > Allow private access

Now you'll be routed through private roads anywhere. It should ignore the private flag if it's directly adjacent to the start or end of a route.

Testing just now, it appears to not route through private roads unless it needs to (e.g. destination is on the private road) when you have that setting on, but it might just heavily down weight it so that if the public route is long enough out of the way, it will use it?

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#33

Post by lorenzohess »

h4kunamata wrote: post #30

CoMaps is by far one of the best offline navigation map app available. They forked from Organic Maps project which seems to have gone evil. CoMaps calculation is very fast, map update is constant, it is very lightweight, it has a very clean layout, usability is top tier. CoMaps can find places by the business name, there is still room for improvement but it works. I was using EarthMagic before that, it was the perfec…

What happened to Organic Maps?

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#34

Post by sfRattan »

charlie-83 wrote: post #23

I really want to stop using Google maps but the issue I have with every other option is that I can never just search for the place I want to go to. 99% of the time, the place I am going to is a business, searching " " on anything other than Google maps either gives me nothing (OsmAnd in this category) or might give me some the shops of that chain but in a random order and intermixed with towns a hundred miles away wh…

I'm stubborn enough to use Google Maps in my web browser (signed out) and then copy/paste the actual destination address into the app for turn-by-turn directions (e.g. CoMaps, OsmAnd). It's inconvenient, but it's also one less Google app on my phone.

The Google Maps moat has always been its breadth of accurate, current business information. It is unfortunately the Yellow Pages of the Internet era.

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#35

Post by gentile »

brendyn wrote: post #8
XorNot wrote: post #6

At this point I prefer OsmAnd navigation over Google maps. Maps reliably does stupid things like route through winding residential streets because it thinks that's faster and can obviously be done at the full posted speed limit. OsmAnd on the other hand builds routes I would build: get on the main road and get close, then get to the destination.

I use osmand for privacy but I think it just emphasises main roads. In Melbourne it always suggests turning off cemetery road west because it doesn't know it's congested and will get me stuck for 20 minutes. And there are some missing slip roads. And navigation constantly fails to start. I wonder, how difficult is it to make minor edits to the map data?

To add, a bit complicated, but osm data can be edited with osmium (cpp) or pyosmium (python). Then the edited data can be put into osmandmapcreator to generate the file to use in Osmand. (I used this to route around ALPRs)

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#36

Post by dhx »

charlie-83 wrote: post #23

I really want to stop using Google maps but the issue I have with every other option is that I can never just search for the place I want to go to. 99% of the time, the place I am going to is a business, searching " " on anything other than Google maps either gives me nothing (OsmAnd in this category) or might give me some the shops of that chain but in a random order and intermixed with towns a hundred miles away wh…

The situation with retail chains is improving thanks to projects such as https://alltheplaces.xyz/ (disclaimer: I'm a contributor) and efforts of some OSM contributors to focus their contributions towards comparing OSM and ATP features to add missing shops, remove closed shops, update opening hours, etc. For one such example, see https://matkoniecz.codeberg.page/improving_openstreetmap_usi... for a tool (created by https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=matkoniecz) which is used to match and compare OSM and ATP features.

This work has been slow to take off though as the OSM community has traditionally been stuck on time wasting debates about whether opening hours displayed on the wall of a shop are copyrighted (just the raw data, not a photo of their presentation), and debating the merits and pitfalls of armchair mapping vs. on-the-ground mapping. At least these historical roadblocks seem to now be mostly resolved.

For OsmAnd, you might be able to use the OBF import feature (see https://www.osmand.net/docs/user/personal/import-export/) to add the raw ATP dataset, or potentially other open data such as Overture Maps if that is more to your liking. Data is mostly sourced direct from brand websites, APIs, etc (as if you were using a storefinder map on their website).

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#37

Post by TheLNL »

lorenzohess wrote: post #33
h4kunamata wrote: post #30

CoMaps is by far one of the best offline navigation map app available. They forked from Organic Maps project which seems to have gone evil. CoMaps calculation is very fast, map update is constant, it is very lightweight, it has a very clean layout, usability is top tier. CoMaps can find places by the business name, there is still room for improvement but it works. I was using EarthMagic before that, it was the perfec…

What happened to Organic Maps?

The community forked and created comaps because the organic maps maintainers were unwilling to listen to the community, taking decisions that the community disapproved of.

Comaps seems to be more active than organic maps today

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#38

Post by eisa01 »

lorenzohess wrote: post #33
h4kunamata wrote: post #30

CoMaps is by far one of the best offline navigation map app available. They forked from Organic Maps project which seems to have gone evil. CoMaps calculation is very fast, map update is constant, it is very lightweight, it has a very clean layout, usability is top tier. CoMaps can find places by the business name, there is still room for improvement but it works. I was using EarthMagic before that, it was the perfec…

What happened to Organic Maps?

They also made their map generator closed source

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#39

Post by schaum »

dhx wrote: post #36
charlie-83 wrote: post #23

I really want to stop using Google maps but the issue I have with every other option is that I can never just search for the place I want to go to. 99% of the time, the place I am going to is a business, searching " " on anything other than Google maps either gives me nothing (OsmAnd in this category) or might give me some the shops of that chain but in a random order and intermixed with towns a hundred miles away wh…

The situation with retail chains is improving thanks to projects such as https://alltheplaces.xyz/ (disclaimer: I'm a contributor) and efforts of some OSM contributors to focus their contributions towards comparing OSM and ATP features to add missing shops, remove closed shops, update opening hours, etc. For one such example, see https://matkoniecz.codeberg.page/improving_openstreetmap_usi... for a tool (created by h…

Interesting project osmand user here mainly in Germany.

In some cities osm data is far more accurate when t comes to opening hours or if a shop actually still exists compared to Google maps. However searching for them is a pain that one needs a bug improvement.

Since I can't rely on the search I usually try to find the poi category and click though the results,super markets,restaurants, pharmacy,atm etc works but so many cliks and caveats. Search needs massive improvement.

Re: OsmAnd’s Faster Offline Navigation (2025)

#40

Post by schaum »

yorwba wrote: post #19
lejalv wrote: post #14

For those of you using OSMAnd - do you think there is any chance that they will offer public transport routing? I would at once get the 15-year XV plan if they got this, but perhaps it's at odds with their motto “Offline Maps and Navigation”? (even if I personally could live with schedule-based routing, i.e. not real-time routing, at least for a while).

You can enable the "public transport" profile in OsmAnd, today. It might not support your local area, though.

And there are no realtime updates,for example bus won't even go on a Sunday but it would still route you like it would ..
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