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OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

blog.firedrake.org

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Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#41

Post by SchemaLoad »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #27

I couldn’t make heads or tails of how to navigate with OSMAnd until thumbing through GitHub issues and finding out about https://opensupermaps.com/ which, after importing a few gigabytes of text files, allows general search of street addresses - not a great learning curve for adoption! What I’d really like to do is copy the old school car GPS interface of, select state, select city, select street, house number, where…

Modern maps apps basically do this for you by using your current location or currently viewed area to automatically put the current city results first.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#42

Post by mastermage »

My problem with OSMand even though it is immensely powerfull is the rendering speed is so slow. Sometimes i just want to have a quick look where I am, but it takes so long to load higher detail levels.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#43

Post by stevage »

lmm wrote: post #38
stevage wrote: post #22

I use Osmand a lot. It work well, but I dearly wish they'd improve some UX issues. I always seem to have the map telling me how far it is to some temporary marker I placed months ago that I can't easily work out how to remove. Also any time I do navigation, the Trip Recording plugin pops up as a sticky system notification even when I haven't enabled trip recording. But the offline navigation is a killer feature, and…

> I always seem to have the map telling me how far it is to some temporary marker I placed months ago that I can't easily work out how to remove. You can either tap the marker and tick it off, or use Menu -> Map markers if you can't find it. You can also use Menu -> Configure map and turn off Map markers completely. > Also any time I do navigation, the Trip Recording plugin pops up as a sticky system notification eve…

Yeah figured out the map marker thing now. Ticking it off didn't really help because it then just switched to the next one.

Just one of those things where the default behaviour isn't great and relies on the user to reconfigure.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#44

Post by lmm »

stevage wrote: post #43
lmm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always seem to have the map telling me how far it is to some temporary marker I placed months ago that I can't easily work out how to remove. You can either tap the marker and tick it off, or use Menu -> Map markers if you can't find it. You can also use Menu -> Configure map and turn off Map markers completely. > Also any time I do navigation, the Trip Recording plugin pops up as a sticky system notification eve…

Yeah figured out the map marker thing now. Ticking it off didn't really help because it then just switched to the next one. Just one of those things where the default behaviour isn't great and relies on the user to reconfigure.

Well, the behaviour is great if you're using markers only as short-term working "notes" and always ticking them off when you're done (use favourites for places you want to save longer-term). But yeah the marker feature doesn't explain how it wants you to use it.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#45

Post by gausswho »

mastermage wrote: post #42

My problem with OSMand even though it is immensely powerfull is the rendering speed is so slow. Sometimes i just want to have a quick look where I am, but it takes so long to load higher detail levels.

Have you tried it since the vector map release a few weeks back? I found it greatly improved rendering performance.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#46

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

carabiner wrote: post #37
NoboruWataya wrote: post #2

It calls Organic Maps new (and the article is recent) but Organic Maps has been around for a while now? FWIW I prefer Organic Maps for casual usage - I think OSMAnd is very featureful but the UI is less intuitive IMO.

What do you use Organic Maps for? Driving directions, walking, hiking, cycling? All of those or something else? It doesn't seem good for hiking because it's missing so many basic metrics that Gaia has (elevation data, different speeds like rate of ascent). I've got a rough impression that it's mostly suited for urban European locales for walking directions, but in the US I only use mapping apps for driving (turn by t…

AllTrails is better for 99% of activities and way easier to use. If you want some kind of uber-specific feature, use case or location, there is usually one app that is better for that (like onX for hunting/fishing, or Yahoo Maps for... Japan)

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#47

Post by mountainhiker »

vzaliva wrote: post #23
jraph wrote: post #3

And now we have CoMaps [1], an Organic Maps fork. I have both OSMAnd and CoMaps installed and started with OSMand, but I see myself reaching for CoMaps exclusively now. Both apps are very good. [1] https://www.comaps.app/

I am sympathetic to the motivation for forking CoMaps, but their website, aside from a few vague statements, does not give me any reassurance that they are better governed. Who are these people (names)? How are they incorporated, and where? How are donations spent? How is the development direction decided? Until these points are clarified, I am hesitant to switch to CoMaps.

This is publicly available:

- People who are regularly contributing to the project: https://codeberg.org/org/comaps/members

- Not yet incorporated, plans likely to have a non-profit in Europe.

- All donation spending is on OpenCollective - https://opencollective.com/comaps

- People who want to contribute to the project can just do so on Codeberg, there is no master plan, people just discuss the work, anyone can provide input : https://codeberg.org/org/comaps/members

For comparison, Organic Maps shares nothing about donations and is opaque about direction and decisions. If those question need to be answered before using an app, then it may be time to drop Organic Maps.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#48

Post by jraph »

31337Logic wrote: post #39
risico wrote: post #9

I've been trying really hard to get off Google Maps and almost managed to do it, but one thing that Google Maps offers and the others are not even close (at least for me) is discoverability. For example if I am out riding some trails and then I want to pop out of the wilderness to grab a bite only Google has been able to provide good information of whats nearby (reviews help a lot as well). Other than that I've been…

I use exactly this feature (and for the exact same reason!) and Organic Maps has been more than helpful for me. Search, Categories, Food, and then View on Map.

Yep. And, unfortunately this is a bit hidden, but if you search "Vegetarian" it finds places where you can eat vegetarian and "Vegan" for places where you can eat vegan. I wonder how many hidden magic search strings like this there are, I'll report an issue for CoMaps to make them discoverable.

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#49

Post by jraph »

koyote wrote: post #33
pferde wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's country-specific. Over here, Google Maps has woefully outdated business info, apart from big names like McDonald or Starbucks. And I'm not even talking about building shapes, sidewalks, paths, or even roads. Meanwhile in OSM, everything is much more detailed and kept up to date. I know, because I'm a mapper myself, and help keep it that way. Google Maps seem like just another ad platform, for companies…

Just so I know for future travels: where is this and what do you use instead? So far I have seen Google Maps be pretty useless in parts of Asia with their own software infrastructure (e.g. Korea or Japan) but it's been very useful in most Western countries.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45090654#45122373

Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps

#50

Post by kabes »

pbsurf wrote: post #24

I've been building https://github.com/styluslabs/maps with support for 3D terrain, custom layers, and plugins for search and routing. Vector tiles are generated and served on-demand by https://github.com/styluslabs/geodesk-tiles so there's no need to download an entire country or region first.

But can you download a country up front? For offroad motorcycle trips I often get in to areas with no mobile connectivity
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