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Organic Maps

organicmaps.app

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Re: Organic Maps

#451

Post by sdeframond »

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…

> I genuinely want to know what lead Google to not support Maps offline properly.

Perhaps Google's mapping business isn't so much showing maps but helping local businesses get found, rated, reviewed... (restaurants,shops etc).

Re: Organic Maps

#452

Post by xg15 »

tazjin wrote: post #99
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…

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…

Thank you for that insight. That explains a lot of the bizarre design decisions and shortcomings in the maps UI that have frequently annoyed me.

Re: Organic Maps

#453

Post by joren »

By far the best app when abroad. Use it to plan a holiday with color coded bookmarks. Easy to plan hikes, runs etc. And all offline. Great to spot where you find drinking water, playgrounds, and all the other great details OSM provides.

Started using it in Montenegro for driving as well since I didn’t want to pay a fortune for roaming and all other offline apps or even GPS device did not have the country available offline.

Re: Organic Maps

#454

Post by jaakl »

vintagedave wrote: post #411
iavael wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s developed in Estonia! It's actually developed by mostly Russian and Belorussian developers who live in Switzerland, New Zealand, Russia, and Belarus. Also, there are some significant contributions from residents of other countries, but none of them are from Estonia. Looks like the only Estonian thing is legal entity for doing business. But nevertheless, I agree that Estonia is remarkable for its IT culture. I…

Thanks for the info. I saw the OÜ and the registered address in Tallinn and thought it was based here. I can’t edit my original comment now unfortunately.

This is essentially po box (or more just fake address) for Estonian e-resident companies (https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/). It is quite popular for fellow neighbours Russians, Belorussians etc for whom their local country is not that enterpreneurial-friendly.

Re: Organic Maps

#455

Post by jaakl »

taink wrote: post #289
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…

> It’s developed in Estonia! Estonia has a remarkable IT and software culture (I live there) and every so often you come across an absolute gem. This looks like one of them What sets Estonia's IT and software culture apart from other countries? What other Estonian software would you recommend?

Estonian probably better known unicorns are Skype (now Microsoft/Teams), Pipedrive (CRM), Bolt (EU biggest Uber alternative), Starship (robotics), Wise, Sixfold (now Trimble) As Estonian I would recommend any of them, but it is just how our culture works :)

Re: Organic Maps

#456

Post by jaakl »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #436
brianpan wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting offline would take design, effort, and testing. Anything can be done. But you can't do everything.

Sure but Google could surely do this.

Offline maps in Google have been blocked also by map data license terms - their providers just dont want to allow this, as they want to sell it as premium thing.

Re: Organic Maps

#457

Post by brailsafe »

Seems like a noble effort, and I'll keep it installed and in-mind, but I'm just about to head out on a rather well-tread trail that just happens to be quite long and segmented, and I can't make anything useful of the UI at all. Though I could piece together a custom trail I was satisfied with—after much irritation and rezooming—there was then no way to save it for later that I could see, and when I tried importing a KML or GPX it was rather clumsy; I eventually succeeded at displaying the route, and maybe that'll ckme in handy later today, but I ultimately just decided to use the AllTrails pro trial and hopefully remember to cancel in time. I can't mess around with iffy, unpredictable interfaces when I'm exhausted both physically and mentally and cell service is spotty at best. hwat would be awesome is to seriously iterate on the UI of the trail side of things, if the technical bits are in-place, because it seems like an otherwise commendable endeavor. It just feels very open-source, as in maybe it technically works, but I wouldn't put myself in a vulnerable position with it

Re: Organic Maps

#458

Post by itwillnotbeasy »

It has a cool feature on Android, when phone is locked, I only need to press the unlock button to see the map, phone doesn't ask for a password/fingerprint scan. This saves so much time when traveling on a bicycle because I don't like planning a detailed route, i just set a destination point, and ride in that direction, choosing the best scenic view. In that scenario, my phone mostly sits in my pocket, and I pull it out only when I get lost, but it saves so much time through the whole route.

If I want to switch to another app, Android asks me to authenticate, I don't know why google maps doesn't work the same way.

Re: Organic Maps

#459

Post by kitkat_new »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #229
rob74 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds a bit American to me honestly - I would think that in Europe (and especially in Amsterdam) there would be enough cyclists to make the data usable. OTOH, they may not have the necessary privacy settings enabled (I think that's a minority among car users too). Of course it's also a vicious circle: if Google Maps is bad for cyclists, few cyclists will be using it, so you won't get the data you need to make i…

How many cyclists use Google Maps to navigate? I guess (with no true facts) most cyclists know their primary routes and when going somewhere new have a rough idea and just check for the last part. Whereas car drivers often use navigation all the time to see traffic and alternatives, which are non-issues for cyclists. Thus even with many cyclists the information they collect is less.

> and just check for the last part.

hit is not how I use navigation apps when cycling. When I don't know the way, I start my navigation app (not gmaps) when I drive off, because

- I don't want to stop midway to check where I need to go, when I can do that when I get on the bike - I don't know where exactly to stop to check where to go - If I don't know where exactly I want to go, going roughly in the right direction probably means that I cycle longer than I need to

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