[HN Gopher] Why Openstreetmap's product fails to compete with Go...
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Why Openstreetmap's product fails to compete with Google Maps
Author : liotier
Score : 121 points
Date : 2021-01-02 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bedogged.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bedogged.substack.com)
| deanclatworthy wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody has mentioned tiles here. In order for
| anyone to build products around OSM data you're probably going to
| want to render a map. Tile hosting services are costly and I have
| up last time I tried to find out how you could do it yourself.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| > Tile hosting services are costly and I have up last time I
| tried to find out how you could do it yourself.
|
| Blatant self-promotion: my company (https://stadiamaps.com) is
| trying to fix this problem (I think we have in many ways). I
| strongly believe you shouldn't have to stand up your own tile
| hosting infra just to deploy a map without paying $$$ / month.
| If you want to though, do it! It'll teach you a lot.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Do not try installing Maps.me now. It's been sold twice and
| current owners kept only the name, replacing the original code
| with a Mapbox demo app.
|
| AFAIK, the spiritual successor to Maps.me is Guru Maps.
|
| But if you can live with the complexity of OsmAnd UI, just get it
| from F-Droid to avoid the 5-maps limit imposed by the Google Play
| version.
| ce4 wrote:
| Discussion from 11d ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004
| chippy wrote:
| OSM does not fail as a product because it is not trying to be a
| product and it is not trying to compete!
|
| From his twitter it appears that the author is a Facebook
| employee. Now working (I guess) on Facebook Maps and (probably)
| on the Mapillary product. The somewhat surprising fact to many is
| that OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook. If Facebook
| disappeared, OSM would continue. Think about that again, OSM does
| not need the participation of any large corporate body to
| continue. The editors of OpenStreetMap welcome big corporate
| users of the database but they don't actually seek out or need
| huge corporate users. Don't get me wrong - OSM editors love that
| Facebook and Apple use and contribute, there's lots of reasons to
| praise this. It's like a wikipedia editor who hears that teachers
| are using their articles in all the nations schools - they are
| honoured and welcome it, but if the teachers stopped one day the
| wikipedia editor would still keep on writing those articles!
|
| So, OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook or Apple. OpenStreetMap
| does not need to compete or be a product. Seems to me that I
| would view that as a big risk for Apple and Facebook. So, lets
| imagine how two of the FAANG could protect their investments and
| reduce risks. Would the changes that OpenStreetMap would need to
| make to be a product and to compete with Google Maps reduce such
| risk?
|
| It seems to me that there might possibly be a push from the FAANG
| users of OSM to make it into a product, to grow, to be a tech
| organisation with actual employees, a CEO, a structure, an
| organisation that is familiar to many in tech and their lawyers,
| a business one can do business with, create contracts with, make
| NDAs to, employee people in, write deals with, have a say in the
| direction of and invest actual money in. Currently there is none
| of that and I think that might be worrying to FAANG.
|
| Even if there's no conscious push from these huge corporations
| its more probable and it makes more sense to someone with a
| Silicon Valley mindset that any tech organisation look, behave,
| and be organised as every other successful tech organisation.
| It's therefore logical from multiple directions to want OSM to
| change to become a product company. I would argue that OSM is
| successful exactly because it is not like a tech organisation.
| rawland wrote:
| It's not a product. Click bait.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| OSM needn't compete with Google Maps (as a consumer application)
| directly; it doesn't, really.
|
| Lots of apps _based_ on OSM data do need to compete, and that is
| very difficult to do on a global-scale. That 's why most
| successful OSM-based consumer applications serve a few niches
| incredibly well. This is not counting the dozens of companies
| offering OSM-based base maps for use in other, mostly non-map-
| related uses (such as a store locator or data visualization
| tool).
|
| OSM has the advantage of time, no need to make money, and a
| vibrant community around it. Google has to make money directly or
| indirectly via Google Maps to justify continued investment; OSM
| simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the
| data will become. As the ecosystem around OSM improves (and
| continues building positive feedback loops), I strongly suspect
| we will see a successful consumer-targeted app using OSM data,
| and it will be much better than the many (good) apps right now,
| simply because another 5-10 years of accumulated data
| improvements outstrip the competition's willingness to continue
| investing.
|
| Caveat: I cofounded an OSM base map provider. I'm biased. :-)
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Maps.me is OSM under the hood, and it's very popular and far
| ahead of the Google offering on features and completeness.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Open source software is often comparable or even superior to
| the proprietary sort in feature set, the kind of thing you
| can list in bullet points. But it tends to fall down when it
| comes to user experience.
|
| I remember attempting to use OSM on my phone before, and I
| remember being similarly confused about "which app should I
| use?" and the ones I tried just being fairly clunky. But I'll
| give maps.me a try, I can't remember if that was one of them.
| mixedCase wrote:
| OsmAnd~ (F-Droid build) has been serving me well for the
| past 5 years or so and it's gotten a lot of love over time
| in the UI/UX side.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Unfortunately OsmAnd misses a tremendous quantity of
| addresses from where I live.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Is the tilde part of the name?
| asddubs wrote:
| Yes, and it's only on F-Droid. Apparently there's OsmAnd
| and OsmAnd+, and the one with the tilde is basically the
| + version with no dependencies on google services. At
| least according to german wikipedia, which had a
| convenient little table
| maxerickson wrote:
| This can be a tumultuous time to try maps.me. It recently
| got a new owner that decided to use it as a distribution
| channel for their digital wallet. I'm not sure where it
| stands right now, but at one point they had thrown away the
| previous app nearly entirely.
| matthberg wrote:
| For more context check out [0], which had a major
| discussion when it was posted. In short, the source code
| of Maps.me is open source and people are working on
| building from that, yet the Maps.me you find in the play
| store isn't the same as the one so many people recommend.
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004
| creato wrote:
| This kind of garbage is why open source software can't
| compete with the likes of Google. I started out reading
| this comment chain thinking "great, I'm going to try
| maps.me". 10 seconds later, I've learned I can't just try
| it, I have to find the right fork, of which I see
| several, each with people mentioning serious caveats. And
| who knows when the currently best fork will get taken
| over by the next wallet software huckster?
| ce4 wrote:
| Maps.me was recently sold and got a lot of negative press for
| their latest changes (becoming more GMaps like, hiding detail
| etc). Discussion from 11d ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Citation needed.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| It just has a cluttered and sometimes confusing interface (in
| my experience) which makes it difficult for me to intuitively
| use it for routing especially. So I typically use Apple Maps
| for routing--because it just works and is easy.
| patrickk wrote:
| HERE Maps (called 'Here WeGo' on the App Store) is usually
| better than Google maps for me in a car, at least in Europe.
| It's owned by the German car industry and used to be Nokia
| maps.
| foepys wrote:
| Some local public transportation "companies" in Germany (which
| are called "Anstalt des offentlichen Rechts" - literal
| translation "entity of public law" - and are more or less non-
| profit businesses funded by the city) are using OSM data for
| their apps and websites and they often edit the bus/tram/train
| routes and stops if they change them. This is where OSM shines:
| public entities keeping their data up to date for the benefit
| of all.
| izacus wrote:
| Is that really so much different than those same companies
| pushing their timetable feeds directly to Google for display
| in GMaps?
|
| Where does OSM provide value here and how can it beat GMaps
| in mindshare and keep suriving?
| rakoo wrote:
| It's not just about market share. In both cases there is an
| intermediary between the (public) service provider and the
| users, which is the public. In one case the intermediary is
| a private entity that answers to no one; in the other case
| the data belongs to all of us. If you go beyond a
| mercantile view, it's easy which one is the best for the
| public in the long term.
| Retric wrote:
| It's simply more efficient to update OSM, which makes OSM
| more up to date.
|
| Google maps pulled data from OSM so the government had
| ~zero incentives to publish to GMaps and every other
| mapping service directly. It's simply more work without
| benefit.
|
| PS: If I remember correct Google was on a 2 week delay for
| OSM data at the time, but that wasn't considered
| meaningful. Also, what's with all the hate here?
| foepys wrote:
| I can pull, analyze, and use the data I paid for with my
| taxes instead of having to beg Google or any other company
| for access to the data.
| croes wrote:
| OSM is non-profit, Google is not. Google tracks the users,
| OSM does not.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Although recently they started enabling another spy to
| spy on their users, when they decided to rely on fastly.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| My guess is the license is the key differentiator.
| liotier wrote:
| Openstreetmap is not an end-user oriented product - but it is
| perceived through such products. Understanding what might make
| it more useful to developers benefits from competitive analysis
| of the consumer products.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's likely it will never compete. Either its data will never
| get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might
| switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make
| loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of
| Chromium.
| ghaff wrote:
| In _some_ ways, I 'd argue it is better today. I find using
| an OSM-based app is far more likely to show trails than
| Google Maps is. (Probably because Google 1.) Doesn't really
| care and 2.) Official data for trails is pretty fragmentary.)
| lukeqsee wrote:
| Shoutout to MapOut on iOS! An excellent outdoor map
| implementation (including fully offline), and I use it all
| the time.
| spratzt wrote:
| Why does Mapout need to use your location even when it
| isn't open?
| ghaff wrote:
| I will take a look! I'm still using maps.me.
|
| ADDED: Very nicely done. Just bought it.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| > Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it
| will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for
| Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that
| way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium.
|
| Sure, that's reasonable, too. I think OSM (the project &
| database) wins in that situation, even if its derivations
| don't compete.
|
| Again, I don't really see OSM directly competing with Google
| Maps (the app).
| bradbeattie wrote:
| > OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better
| the data will become.
|
| Probably, but not necessarily. The world changes with time and
| if OSM contributions languish, it falls out of date with the
| world and tangibly becomes a worse product. Certainly not
| inevitable, but a possibility worth noting.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Agreed. In fact, I think the OSM total fraction of errors
| will exponentially decay towards some non-zero fixed fraction
| of errors. That's because, on average in the long term, the
| world probably changes at an approximately fixed rate
| (relative to total mappable features in the world) and OSM is
| updated/corrected at a fixed rate (relative to fraction of
| mappable features that are wrong or missing). Even given the
| benefit of a lot of time, the OSM can never catch up with a
| mapping service that updates faster because that other
| service will have a different equilibrium.
| dheera wrote:
| Yeah I was here to say this. OSM doesn't even compete with
| Google Maps, or rather, Google Maps doesn't even compete with
| OSM if you want to do any kind of large scale analysis on
| streets without silly licensing restrictions.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| I find OSM (the website) is a great map. It's blazing fast
| (Google Maps aren't), and the color scheme is very clear. When I
| want to explore some random place on Earth (that uses a writing
| system I can actually read) I always use OSM.
|
| Google Maps (or its local competitors) are great for spatial
| searches (ATMs in the area, shops in the area) and routing.
|
| Finally, Wikimapia is great for virtual urban exploration. If you
| saw an abandoned building or warehouse, or found a suspicious
| bald spot in the middle of the forest when using OSM or Google
| Maps, the best place to learn about it is Wikimapia.
| ivan_ah wrote:
| Direct link to Wikimapia https://wikimapia.org/
|
| Highly recommended for looking around when you move to a new
| neighbourhood or city... I would say tourism, but that is NaT
| (not a thing) right now.
| luplex wrote:
| Before Christmas, i downloaded StreetComplete so I have something
| to do on my daily walks. This post just reminded me to actually
| upload my changes.
|
| The whole process worked flawlessly, i can recommend it.
|
| The only problem is that there seems to be not a lot of community
| coordination, so I'm not sure which data types I should focus on.
| sildur wrote:
| > I worry myself every time I open Google Maps on my phone. I
| feel like a traitor.
|
| Easy, uninstall it and use only their web version, which is
| hideous in mobile.
| Pinus wrote:
| OSM:s biggest problem seems to be that it offers a product -- a
| map database -- that very few people need, and even fewer people
| can use, while still relying on millions of ordinary people for
| data collection (which means understanding the data model, which
| is getting hideously complex, because it tries to encode
| _everything_ that can be located).
| lukeqsee wrote:
| The value is in the derivative works (literally hundreds of
| companies directly and indirectly rely on OSM for their map
| data).
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > which means understanding the data model
|
| This not needed. You can use iD (default in-browser editor)
| without direct tag use.
|
| On Android you can use StreetComplete that has no exposure to
| tags or tagging schemes and requires 0 OSM-specific knowledge
| to use (except creating OSM user account).
|
| > OSM:s biggest problem seems to be that it offers a product --
| a map database -- that very few people need, and even fewer
| people can use
|
| Most people use it indirectly, that is not some fundamental
| problem.
| larzang wrote:
| Individuals may not need it, but companies? The company I work
| for has multiple products which internally rely on geolocating
| arbitrary addresses. OSM keeps our costs way down, we only have
| to pay Google when OSM fails a match and we fall back to the
| Google Maps API. I doubt we're uncommon in this. OSM had less
| of a programmatic use when Google's free monthly tiers were
| large and subsequent costs low, but that hasn't been the case
| for a good while now.
| Shank wrote:
| My biggest critique with OSM and OSM-based maps is that
| contributing an OSM change has an unknown time delay between "OSM
| change" and "actual map software updates to have it." I was
| infuriated to find multiple geography issues in Apple Maps in my
| area. I went to OSM, and the underlying source has already been
| corrected. The satellite imagery is correct, but the map layers
| for navigation and travel are wrong. How long will it take for
| OSM changes to make it into Apple Maps? No clue.
|
| You can submit corrections for some info (like place details) to
| Apple and Google and they'll change within 24-48 hours. If you
| update OSM, however, it'll take you an unknown amount of time.
| Some iOS apps proudly champion being able to update OSM data
| monthly -- but that's still huge compared to basically over a
| weekend.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The changes make it into the database in more or less real time
| and there are condensed feeds providing the changes for the
| last minute, hour, or day.
|
| So the delays are on the data consumer side. A lot of that ends
| up being QA, because big companies don't want to publish
| vandalism. Of course, when they accidentally do publish
| vandalism, their slower update pace becomes a weakness.
| Drdrdrq wrote:
| Does that happen? One would assume that the slower update
| pace is just a matter of policy, so with vandalism they would
| be able to apply fixes much faster.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There was a notable example a few years ago.
|
| https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2018/08/30/osm-condemns-
| vanda...
|
| OSM had the vandalism removed in a couple hours. A few
| weeks later, the QA mistakenly let the vandalism through
| and it wasn't corrected until it got quite a lot of
| attention.
| emacsen wrote:
| I'm the author of both "Why the World Needs OpenStreetMap" and
| "Why OpenStreetMap is in serious trouble".
|
| I think the issue of a mobile application is an interesting one,
| and on its own is not an issue, but combined with other issues,
| it is.
|
| My favorite OSM based map app was Mapzen Mobile.
|
| The reason I think Mapzen Mobile worked better than other apps
| was that it generally understood the ways in which users use OSM
| data, which largely ties into the critiques I and others have
| around OSM's geolocation services. They're very Euro-centric-
| even in comparison to how a North American uses the same
| services.
|
| But as long as map apps aren't good, then users will be forced to
| use proprietary maps, which feeds back into itself.
|
| We have some amazing opportunities- more now than ever, but the
| OSMF needs to put conscious effort into direction, making (ie
| funding and overseeing development) over mechanisms to allow for
| regular people to have OSM as easily _and as well_ as Google
| Maps.
|
| This is no small feat, but I think that such a design could be
| designed- especially if it combined not only the existing mapping
| technologies for data (ie vector maps across the wire) but also
| localization of geolocation in a manner that mimiced the way
| geolocation data itself is crowdsourced- making it easy to build
| more relevant results from search and display the information
| people want quickly and easily.
|
| But like the author, I am disheartened and have my doubts that
| the OSMF would take on such an ambitious task. I wish very much
| that they would!
| necovek wrote:
| It's actually quite an interesting dynamic: USA OSM data was
| largely bootstrapped from public domain government data.
| European data was, in many instances, created from scratch.
|
| Serbian OSM is generally more up to date and more correct than
| Google Maps.
|
| I believe that one of the approaches has led to people who are
| more invested in the result and you can guess which one is
| that.
|
| But to be honest, I find OsmNav better than Google Maps for in
| car navigation, though they both suck. Perhaps Google Maps is
| not bad when you can voice control it, but you can't in
| Serbian.
| juliansimioni wrote:
| (Former Mapzen employee here).
|
| I _think_ you're talking about Eraser
| Map(https://github.com/mapzen/eraser-map) right?
|
| It was awesome! It's the closest I know of to "Google Maps, but
| open source and based on open data". It was an app built for
| _end users_, not OSM editors. And it worked pretty darn well.
| When it didn't, any problems could (at least theoretically) be
| addressed with improvements to OSM data or the Mapzen open-
| source projects.
|
| There was a team of at least two people working on it full
| time, plus lots of work on the design, product, and integration
| with geocoding, routing, transit etc. The multi-modal
| (switching from walking to transit to car, etc) transit
| directions were particularly awesome.
|
| I used it as my daily driver for much of my navigation around
| NYC, and as time went on only had to fall back to Google Maps
| maybe 25% of the time, usually for missing POI data.
|
| Unfortunately I think it's one of the few Mapzen projects that
| hasn't seen new life after the company shut down, and like you
| said it would take quite a bit of work (read: money) to keep it
| going. It might be possible with some work to find grant money
| through a couple organizations. The OSMF has done some awesome
| work lately with the micro-grants, but this would definitely be
| a level we haven't seen (yet).
| twic wrote:
| > The reason I think Mapzen Mobile worked better than other
| apps was that it generally understood the ways in which users
| use OSM data, which largely ties into the critiques I and
| others have around OSM's geolocation services. They're very
| Euro-centric- even in comparison to how a North American uses
| the same services.
|
| Could you expand on this? When you say "ways in which users use
| OSM data", do you mean "ways in which American users use OSM
| data"? What is wrong with OSM's geolocation services? What even
| are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM was just a map!
| What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric?
| emacsen wrote:
| > What is wrong with OSM's geolocation services?
|
| They come up with irrelevant results or no results at all. I
| talked about this in more detail in "Why OSM is in serious
| trouble".
|
| > What even are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM
| was just a map!
|
| OSM isn't a map, it's a geographic database.
|
| By OSM's geolocation services, I mean Nominatim. Pelias gave
| me better results but it's gone AFAIK.
|
| > What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric?
|
| People search for things differently in Europe than they do
| in the US.
|
| As a small example, I will regularly search for
| intersections, but I've been told Europeans don't often do
| that.
| juliansimioni wrote:
| Hi! Pelias core maintainer and former Mapen employee here.
| It is not gone :)
|
| After Mapzen shut down a co-worker and I founded Geocode
| Earth(https://geocode.earth/) to continue working on the
| Pelias project, funded by consulting and, primarily, a SaaS
| much like Mapzen Search.
|
| Over the past 3 years the project has improved quite a bit,
| and Geocode Earth has had solid growth (50% SaaS revenue in
| 2020). We've been fully bootstrapped this whole time and
| plan on continuing this well...indefinitely!
|
| In fact, intersection support is already present in Pelias
| and will be rolling out to Geocode Earth soon :)
| subins2000 wrote:
| I use OsmAnd and there are a lot of features. What troubles
| with Google Maps in India is that every road is considered
| basically the same and the routes it calculate often tends to
| be on very bad roads whereas OsmAnd tries to pick the road
| based on quality/main-roads first then side roads. This is very
| useful in India where many roads have potholes. Major roads
| (national, state, district highways) are better maintained than
| the rest. This distinction between roads are clearly mapped in
| OSM, at least in Kerala.
|
| GMaps also tries to calculate the very shortest path possible,
| but this often is a bad idea in India cause the roads won't be
| that great to go through.
|
| Some of the things I like about OsmAnd: navigation-with-voice,
| speedbump warnings, sightseeing notifications, trip
| recording+stats, parking area finder, different profiles
| (walking, driving, browsing etc.) :- all this available offline
| :)
| [deleted]
| maire wrote:
| I use only 1 metric to compare maps - are they accurate giving
| directions to my address?
|
| Google Maps used to be great - far better than Map Quest. Waze
| was pretty bad. Apple was initially bad. Open Street Maps was
| pretty good except they thought my driveway was a road.
|
| In the past year Google got pretty bad. Apple became awesome.
| About a year ago Open Street Maps improved.
|
| Then this morning I checked Open Street Maps and it now has the
| exact same bug that has irritated me with Google!
|
| I suspect there is some bad code sharing between OSM and Google.
|
| Details - if your physical address is in a different county than
| your postal office it confuses the heck out of Google. OSM used
| to handle this just fine, but not now.
|
| Accuracy counts more than anything else!
| etimberg wrote:
| Is what you consider a driveway actually a driveway legally
| speaking? In rural areas even if you own all the property
| around the roadway, the road itself might be a public easement.
| maire wrote:
| The driveway was put in by my father - so no it is not a
| roadway.
|
| I think there was wishful thinking since many of the OSM
| maintainers are mountain bikers and the Santa Cruz mountains
| has some desirable mountain biking paths. The back part of
| our property is on The Soquel Demonstration Forest which has
| an awesome mountain biking path.
|
| They were pretty good about fixing the issue when I pointed
| it out.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| What app are you using? OSM itself (openstreetmap.org) doesn't
| do routing, so I'm guessing the data itself is bad? It could be
| a bad governmental open data merge.
| maire wrote:
| > What App are you using.
|
| I used the OSM web page.
|
| Just type in the address with zip code, and it takes you to a
| completely different different zip code. This is a relatively
| new bug.
|
| I find it interesting that I am down voted by 4 points. The
| OSM fans must not understand the value of user testing. Maybe
| it is the google fans who don't understand user testing.
| j45 wrote:
| Are there former google maps employees who could be hired to work
| on OSM? Sounds like it could be something folks would be willing
| to chip in for.
| emacsen wrote:
| The issue isn't lack of engineering but that the engineering in
| OSM is entirely on the "value add" providers, that are the
| companies using OSM.
|
| The OSM Foundation and general leadership (both official and
| unofficial) are people who sell these services (map rendering
| and geolocation) and appear blind to the need for a dedicated
| effort to make it better. They instead rely on work done a
| decade ago, proprietary work done by companies or else work
| done by volunteers without coordination.
|
| Because of this, the situation persists and gets worse over
| time.
| j45 wrote:
| I'm new to this problem and appreciate the scope of the
| explanation.
| lukeqsee wrote:
| In my estimation, Google's data advantage mostly comes from
| deploying millions of monetary units to sending physical cars
| out to drive every road they could (and doing it over and over
| again).
|
| How does OSM compete with that in a centralized way? I don't
| think it can. OSM competes by decentralization and millions of
| individual contributions.
|
| I don't think hiring a few people will move the needle much.
| I'd be grateful to be wrong, though!
| j45 wrote:
| That's a fair point. I was imagining things from the user
| experience layer and not the data. Both are important, I do
| think friendlier the UX can be for basic things, the more I
| could get folks I know to try using it instead.
|
| That is one way Waze started to get a leg up on Google Maps,
| it's experience was creating a more meaningful experience for
| the average driver...and as a result, data.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Well, so far I have always preferred OSM over Google Maps, simply
| because of tracking and spying and because for me personally the
| user interface delivered a better experience. Also it only needed
| third party stuff when searching for routes from A to B. However,
| lately the situation with OSM has drastically worsened, when they
| started relying on fastly. I'll unfortunately have to find a new
| map website now.
|
| Welcoming any suggestions for map websites with basic
| functionality like OSM, but without relying on spying eyes.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| OSM has the same problem as many other open-source projects: not
| enough focus on branding and user experience.
|
| Right now, if I want to use OSM on my iPhone and I search
| "OpenStreetMap" in the App Store I get various applications under
| various, unknown names. The closest to an "official" name would
| be OSMaps, but it turns out even that one isn't official and has
| no navigation capabilities.
|
| On Android, I don't have a phone to test with but seems like the
| most popular option appears to be OsmAnd. Again, not only is the
| name cryptic but doesn't imply anything unless you're already
| familiar with OSM. "Google Maps", "Apple Maps", etc in contrast
| automatically imply what the app is for even if you've never
| heard of the brand itself.
|
| If OSM wants to succeed in the consumer space, they need to
| release an official, "reference implementation" of a mobile
| client with an UI comparable to the competition that a layman can
| understand and use even if they have no idea what OSM is nor are
| interested in contributing.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| But that would mean OSM Starts competing with its corporate
| users. Not sure this will be a healthy strategy.
|
| What I would love to see would be an app allowing me to quickly
| contribute to OSM, e.g. fix things, add street names or POIs,
| etc.
| bchanudet wrote:
| On Android you can use StreetComplete. With it, you'll be
| mostly able to add missing details around you, and the types
| of quests available are very broad. Arguably, you can't fix
| things with it, I heard there was an other app on F-Droid to
| do this but I haven't tried it yet.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| "Arguably, you can't fix things with it" - you can fix
| certain things, thanks to resurvey quest that were added.
|
| For example resurvey of old opening hours data, recent
| version (v28.0) added also ability to directly handle shop
| that is gone and replaced by another (it may not be
| released for you, especially if you use F-Droid). See https
| ://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/releases/ta...
| for details.
|
| For full scale editing on Android see Vespucci.
| orange_tee wrote:
| OSM always worked better for me. I suspect this is going to be
| very location dependent. I guess in the US Google tries really
| hard to get good data or maybe it is easier to get good data. I
| lived in various countries in Europe, always in smaller cities
| and rural areas. OSM data is always more reliable for whatever
| reason. I noticed and was rather surprised that even my small
| hometown of 5000 people had multiple OSM contributors.
| mynegation wrote:
| That might be a good time to share my anecdote. Back in 2017 I
| was driving in Mexico using maps.me in offline mode (saving on
| ex-orbitant data roaming fees). At one point, the highway did a
| wide turn, and some village was tucked away in this turn.
|
| Maps.me decided it would be a good idea to cut through the
| village as its main street connected two points on the bending
| highway like a chord. Yes, in terms of distance it was shorter,
| if you do not account for the allowed speed limit and conditions.
| I spent 10 minutes slowly crawling through the village trying not
| to kill any chickens. I was also low on gas and had barely enough
| to get to the next gas station, so I was not amused.
|
| Since then I always triple-check maps.me routes, looking at the
| whole route and checking it against google maps if I have a
| chance.
|
| To be fair, it has probably more to do with maps.me routing
| algorithm than OSM data, but it is hard to know.
| kortilla wrote:
| Accounting for speed limits is such a basic thing in a route
| plan. I wonder if there was incorrect information in the source
| about the limits.
| gwilikers wrote:
| Why apples as a product fails to compete with oranges - part 1/3
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