Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck
cross-posted from: https://psychedelia.ink/post/526072
My impression of Organic Maps immediately improved when I started driving. It talks! It knows exit numbers! It can tell you which lanes to use! Sure, it isn’t as polished as Google Maps, but all of the functionality is present. The UI is high-contrast and easy to read, although I wish the text showing exit numbers/street names was a little bigger. When you’re simply on the road and following directions, Organic Maps feels every bit as intuitive as Google Maps.
As my fiancee and I prepared to set off into the boonies, I plugged in the address of our hotel. About 45 seconds later, Organic Maps returned the 300-mile route to our destination. It can take a lot longer to calculate longer routes using your phone’s processor instead of a huge cloud server. It didn’t really bother me though; 45 seconds is nothing compared to the 6-hour trip ahead. If that’s the cost of using a maps app that doesn’t spray your personal data all over the internet, I’ll pay it.
And don't forget that organic maps uses osm for the map data and you can make the map better for everyone by using a very simple app called street complete, that let you add shops, street address and a lot more.
I like OrganicMaps' editor more than streetcomplete. I think streetcomplete focuses a lot on things that don't matter.
Use what works best for you! I will say I love how I can customize StreetComplete so that the things I think are important can be asked first.
Does OrganicMaps have editing abilities?
Yed, basic ones for adding and editing POIs.
Have you tried Street Complete Expert? You can edit directly poi with this one too, and you can even enable the option in the settings to view the satellite version of the map
No I have not. Let me give it a try thanks.
No problem!
Is there a street complete community on Lemmy or a magazine on kbin? I'd like to exchange thoughts with fellow mappers.
Dunno but there is an openstreetmap community on lemmy!
My problem with all of the OSM-based navigation tools is the lack of realtime data. I am trying to move away from Google in general, but 50% of my Google Maps usage is for traffic and closures along routes I know.
Just move to my country, where traffic is so bad and unpredictable that not a single navigation app can be trusted.
Traffic... That's a sticking point for some people. Closures, I find OSM is more up to date than google on that front these days.
I don't need traffic data. I live somewhere without bad traffic, deliberately. Traffic is one of the top criteria for me when choosing where to live.
Apparently someone made a community for the app !organicmaps@sopuli.xyz. I haven't used Organic Maps myself so I can't say anything about it.
I traveled around Europe last summer, without data and phone provider, and I can confrim Organic Maps absolutely rocks. Light, responsive, up to date, it's really solid.
Used it as my primary hiking tool recently (i know, I know - I had a compass and a map) and it worked a treat.
Osmand+ doesn't suck.
Did it finally stop reversing the order you have to put in addresses then? Cause until it fixes that, it does suck.
Last time I checked, someone had submitted a PR to food it, and the OSMand team rejected it, cause they liked the reverse order.
I can search for: "street streetnumber city" or "city street streetnumber" and find the address i need
I love the concept of organic maps, and do even use it occasionally, but for now I'm mostly sticking to OSMand.
The main feature missing for me is the ability to customise the map styles. I like using map apps for hiking and organic maps default (/only) style is ugly at best and unusable at worst for this.
Interesting... I love the simple and clean type of Organic Maps, but it's cool that there's an app for everyone out there.
The Organic Maps team is working on an outdoor style, for hiking and similar situations. They had it in a beta version some time ago, but they decided to rework it, so it is not ready yet. You can check in a couple of months if you're interested in seeing how it looks like.
I'd gladly pay a couple €/month for a live traffic and construction data service from OM.
It wouldn't even need to be unfree as the service's value would almost entirely be its data, not the software which facilitates it.
The issue is mostly not about paying for the info, but rather about how to obtain said info without collecting location data of all users in an intrusive way like Google does.
You can add a traffic layer from GMaps to OsmAnd+:
https://gripfastistech.com/index.php/blog/95-update-2020-osmand-google-traffic-live.html
CC @CCatMan@lemmy.one
Does this re-route based on traffic conditions and travel times as well, or simply show the traffic conditions on the map?
It is not used for routing.
Thanks. I figured not but didn't see anything that stated that definitely.
Yeah, really need traffic data with route alternative.
I have only one complain about OSM in general, why can't I browse the bus lines a specific bus stop offers?? I can check if it has a fucking bench but can't inspect the bus lines.
There might be some website that offers that functionality using OSM data.
One thing that we need to understand is that OSM is data. Loads of it. The ways of displaying and searching for that data are up to each website and app that uses OSM data: first the data has to be added to OSM, then someone has to develop a tool to easily view it.
Not sure which application you are using, but you can use the transport map layer of OSM and see all the bus stops. Every stop likely already has the tags for bus stop features.
As for Organic Maps, it's optimized for driving/directions and doesn't have the advanced features that more redines apps have. That said I love it and enjoy using it for directi9ns.
OsmAnd has "public transport" option it shows you all the routes abd stops and you can choose specific one. It is great.
Is it on F-droid?
Yes https://f-droid.org/packages/app.organicmaps/
It's literally the only result if you search for "organic"
i first considered this when maps.me went to shreds. for a while, i used both organic maps and osmand for my cycling trips. the cleaner interface of organic maps won me over. my main gripe at that time was the absence of a route import function. the dev team added that recently. now, i can import both kml and gpx formats.
now, if there is a way to save the in-app planned routes, that would be a huge help.
Wait what happened to maps.me? I still have it installed but barely use it but fondly remember the days hiking with it or exploring new towns.
From Wikipedia
Ah. I tried it recently while overseas, noticed it had been completely enshitified, then came across organic maps. It's better than maps.me ever was, so good riddance.
last i used it, it became a slow, resource-hogging, ad-riddled, bloated mess.
It was sold and got worse into he last years. The goof news is that some of the original developers of maps.me made a fork of that application... Organic Maps.
Btw:
Organic maps is my daily driver for navigation and has been since 2 years. It is a great app and improving very rapidly. It's also a great app for adding POIs to openstreetmap when outside.
Does anyone know, will it work with Android Auto?
It's in development. I think there is beta functionalty already that you can try.
Not yet, but this feature is planned.
It’s the best offline map app I’ve found so far.
Same. And I've tried quite a few ones.
Sadly I can't get voice prompts working with Organic Maps on GrapheneOS. Will stick with OsmAnd+ for now
As great as all these open source gmaps alternatives are, I always end up having trouble getting directions on which bus I need to take to get somewhere. Both OsmAnd~ and this don't have bus route information for my city, which sucks. Otherwise, they work just fine.
So what is it like compared to Guru maps? I've been using that as my primary for a while.
too bad it doesn't have Android Auto support
"Offline Organic Maps Hike Bike"