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No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamificat
by aluhut 9y ago
No love for OpenStreetMaps here?
In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci.
https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci
- tigershark 9y agoLast time that I checked google maps was vastly superior in all the aspects.
- aluhut 9y agoI use it frequently. It's not. Especially regarding updating businesses, small roads (and road quality), paths, opening hours, closed roads&paths/construction sites, bike maps, everything regarding detailed information basically. I have been adding bus stop markers for blind people or types of pedestrian crossings, recycling containers, street light, to OSM with StreetComplete. There is so much more there. Next time, please elaborate on such blunt statements since I believe it may be worse somewhere but it's not generally.
- Freak_NL 9y agoOr, if OpenStreetMap is lacking in your local area, help out! OpenStreetMap thrives when local mappers are involved. Compare this section of a Dutch city: Google: https://www.google.nl/maps/@53.1983621,5.767509,16z?hl=nl https://www.google.nl/maps/@53.1983621,5.767509,16z?hl=nl OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/53.1986/5.7679 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/53.1986/5.7679 Apple: (I guess Apple maps can't be linked to on the web?) It also helps a lot if your government can be persuaded to open up their geographical data. All the building outlines are right there on the map in the Netherlands, up to date to within weeks, because the Dutch OpenStreetMap volunteers work with government data that is permissively licensed and cleared for use with OpenStreetMap. In fact, mistakes in that data set are also picked up by the local OpenStreetMap mappers, and reported back to the government cadastral map. Everyone benefits.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y agoFYI, you can link to Apple Maps [0]. The equivalent URL isn't really much different [1]. A bit unfortunate that there's no consensus on the URL params between providers, though. Trying to open that link on macOS from either Firefox or Safari shows a modal asking if I want to open it with the Maps app. I'm not sure what happens on iOS, but I'd expect something similar. IMO, the lack of web client for Apple Maps makes it the worst of the bunch. Vendor lock-in is a tragedy. I've been trying to use OSM more over the last few months, but it's hard to compete with Google on their home turf. Although OSM started to become more appealing as Google began requiring you to enable all sorts of data tracking for many or its features to work. If you disable location tracking you run into all sorts of bugs. [0] https://developer.apple.com/library/content/featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/MapLinks/MapLinks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007899-CH5-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/content/featuredarticles... [1] http://maps.apple.com/?ll=53.1983621,5.767509 http://maps.apple.com/?ll=53.1983621,5.767509
- Freak_NL 9y ago> IMO, the lack of web client for Apple Maps makes it the worst of the bunch. Vendor lock-in is a tragedy. Yeah, on any other OS your [1] just redirects to Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1972615,5.7689729,17.5z https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1972615,5.7689729,17.5z
- ikurei 9y agoNotice that although it looks like Google doesn't have buildings in those links, they do. You just have to zoom in a bit for them to appear.
- Freak_NL 9y agoTrue. The outlines Google has are very inaccurate though (mostly just rough rectangles), and includes buildings razed years ago.
- bigbugbag 9y agoThe map used in the posted article has been since filled buildings on OSM: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/126762#map=17/41.33998/-89.12703 http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/126762#map=17/41.33998...
- rmc 9y agoIt heavily depends on the area/country/city.
- patrickdavey 9y agoAbsolutely not. I used osm all last year while travelling. The fact you can download offline an entire country worth of data beats the hell out of Google Maps' offline mode. Also the searching by category is brilliant.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dahauns 9y agoI'd suggest to check outside the USA. And even where the actual map data is superior, the "we know better what you want than yourself" approach to UI is infuriating: Hiding of map detail/information based on zoom level is LCD design - you have to zoom in ridiculously close to get most of the info you want, and even then you usually can't be sure that the POIs shown are complete. And don't get me started on "Oooh, you cleared this text field? Lets zoom/move around like crazy!1"
- exadeci 9y agoGmaps is only better in the POI information even much more now as they created this gamification of adding information with Local Guides that they push heavily.
- whazor 9y agoSame in Netherlands. Google Maps has recently become worse and worse. Small pedestrian roads are missing, and the navigation is getting stupid. Google applies the one-way limitations for cars also on cycling routes.
- radicalbyte 9y agoThe navigation also constantly crashes, I can only use it two days a week because the other three days it freezes whilst loading directions.
- londons_explore 9y agoSend in-app feedback about it. It's probably caused by some third party app or rarely-tested phone model. They take in app feedback into account when deciding what to work on next.
- sverhagen 9y agoI don't disagree that Maps lacks a lot of smarts. Sometimes I ponder back to years ago, thinking my TomTom then worked better already than Maps now. But just to be clear, a one way road is still a one way road if you're a bicyclist, unless exceptions are specifically indicated on the traffic signs, no?
- happyraul 9y agoAt least in Munich, one way roads that don't allow bicycles bi-directional travel are the exception. But yes, all one way roads that allow bi-directional traffic for bicycles have a traffic sign that indicates this, and often road markings as well.
- 0xcoffee 9y agoPretty much every one way street in The Netherlands looks like this: http://www.trueamsterdam.com/wp-content/uploads/uitgezonderd-fietsers.jpg http://www.trueamsterdam.com/wp-content/uploads/uitgezonderd... To find a one-way street that applies to cyclists would be an exception.
- erdbeerkuchen 9y agoIncredible. I'm a big fan of google maps but the map of my neighborhood is much much clearer on openstreetmaps than on google maps.
- rmc 9y agoAnd if you don't like how OSM is showing something, you're free¹ to take the data and make your own map showing your own things. [1] free to set up a rendering database that is
- Karrot_Kream 9y agoGoogle Maps actually has the shape of the buildings in my neighborhood incorrect because earlier it was blocked by huge trees, shrouding the shape of the building.
- notahacker 9y agoIt seems to really struggle with single storey extensions and garages in my area, even when they're nearly as large as the main house floorpan and the Google car drove right past them. I think there's probably human intelligence as well as higher resolution imagery in getting those cathedral and space needle details right... And it doesn't have any buildings at all in my friends' neighbourhood, because it was fields when their aerial images were taken under construction when their StreetView cars passed through 4 or so years ago. OpenStreetMap has accurate buildings. Apple Maps doesn't, but you've got a complete street layout and can overlay its more recent aerial imagery to see the buildings. Google Maps has no buildings, no aerial imagery from the last seven or more years, gets the street layout wrong and mislabels some of the few streets it actually shows. It's fun taking a 3D drive through the first roads when they were still lined by bare earth and areas about to start construction, but I got lost using their map... Any mapping service's "moat" depends more on whether it's remotely adequate for the areas an individual cares most about than its ability to superbly render famous features of priority US cities.
- blubb-fish 9y agoI also like OSM a lot but it has serious flaws. For example searching for specific addresses or POIs is cumbersome.
- alex_duf 9y agoI never heard of street complete before, thanks!
- aluhut 9y agoI love this thing. Every time you have to wait somewhere, you can do something good. :)
- nicolapede 9y agoWow, thanks a lot for sharing. It looks wonderful. One thing that I am wondering is: as much reluctant as I am in using Google services, I must admit that Google Map is unbeaten -- in my own experience -- in finding the quickest route in traffic. Is there any alternative service for this purpose?
- therobotking 9y agoThey now owned by Google but I find Waze to consistently provide better and faster routing (by car) than Google Maps when I use them both on my Android phone.
- tbyehl 9y agoI find Waze to be absolutely horrific at routing. Just this week, at the start of a route, it sent me into a wreck on a surface street it already knew was causing crawling speeds for over a mile. 13 minutes in traffic it should have avoided. In the general sense, Wave greatly prefers higher average travel speeds over distance to the point of being comical. Going between my two most frequent destinations can be 34 miles on a bunch of super highways or 21 miles of surface street with a long stretch state highway that is mostly posted 55mph. The calculated ETAs are usually within 3 minutes of each other but Waze almost always wants me to travel the longer distance -- burning a bunch more gas and making the drive more stressful. Then there's all the screwy stuff it does with side streets. Having to enter busy arterial roads from uncontrolled intersections is probably not saving me time and is certainly not making my travels safer or less stressful. Especially when it wants me to turn left. Waze is a nice substitute for shuffling my Valentine One between vehicles.
- skate22 9y agoOSM data is highly variable in quality. Features like building footprint geometries will be great in some areas and completely missing in others. This is not easily detectable, and when you pull open a google map, they often have those features.
- thriftwy 9y agoWhen going to less developed regions, it's the reverse. You don't even know if towns will be on the map with Google, but with OSM, there's always at least something.
- spatial_dima 9y agoYou are spot on here, not sure why you got downvoted.
- pouetpouet 9y agoin some country they could import cadaster data. The licence, policy and quality of these differs from one country to another.
- Ygg2 9y agoI've seen lot of data on OpenStreetMaps that is: A) Wrong/Outdated/Missing B) Just plain Vandalism
- majewsky 9y agoWhat are you looking at? I've never encountered vandalism in nearly 10 years of heavy OSM usage (and some light editing).
- pronik 9y agoYou are right when it comes to streets and bicycle lanes and such. When talking about usability, display quality and search, not so much. I realize the value lies in the data, but for the casual map user there is a long way for OSM to go. Besides, I don't see any reason why Google can't add OpenStreetMap as an additional data source in some or all areas (right in the spirit of the article). It will be interesting to see how the usage and development of OSM changes if that really happens.
- Brakenshire 9y agoOSM has a GPL-like data license. You cannot combine it with another data source without releasing the combined data source.
- themacks 9y agoIf the OSM database is used as is and not used to modify any of their existing data, the existing data wouldn't have to be released. IANAL, but it seems to me that the data could be used in conjunction with existing data for the purposes of rendering tiles and not require releasing any other data sources. https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/ https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
- rmc 9y agoish. You can generate a map image of it, and combine that with other data and that only requires attribution
- rmc 9y ago> I don't see any reason why Google can't add OpenStreetMap as an additional data source in some or all areas (right in the spirit of the article). The OSM licence requires that if you merge another database with it, you need to release the other database under the same licence as OSM. I can't see Google doing that.
- lucb1e 9y agoThe display quality is equal or better: now that I'm used to OSM, I find it completely impossible to orient myself on Google Maps. There is so much more information at a glance on OSM, whereas for Google you have to go to the highest zoom level to see all POIs. Smaller, local shops are often hidden by large chain brands that Google deems more important, and they don't show up until the shop's building almost covers your whole screen. Rather than showing the icon without a name, so you know what's there just not which specific brand, it just shows you nothing. As for search... yeah that company owns search. I'm not surprised they excel at that one :)
- carussell 9y ago> No love for OpenStreetMaps here? Last year, when SVP of Engineering at Google left for Uber, I suggested[1] here on HN that Uber getting into mapping (for exactly the reasons in the article) with OSM would be mutually beneficial (in the same way as outlined in another comment from today[2]). It didn't get a warm response. (IIRC, at first it was even downvoted into the gray.) 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13447070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13447070 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968077
- segmondy 9y agoSure, but I can Google map small locations you have never heard of in Africa. it's freaking nuts!
- JepZ 9y agoJust to give an example Google Maps vs. OSM: https://www.google.de/maps/@53.6402644,10.0622627,17.38z https://www.google.de/maps/@53.6402644,10.0622627,17.38z https://www.openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=17&lat=53.63958&lon=10.06212&layers=B000TT https://www.openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=17&lat=53.63958...
- GFischer 9y agoThe fact that Germany banned Street View contributes to it being less useful there, and I theorize that it might indirectly contribute to less data in Germany. Street View is so amazing, it's a huge game-changer from Google.
- JepZ 9y agoI didn't know that Street View was banned? Well, I noticed that there are probably no updates, but I always thought that Google quit taking photos because it caused so much trouble and negative publicity.
- GFischer 9y agoIt's not strictly banned, Google just decided to abandon Germany and Austria because they required permission on a household-per-household basis. They seem to be starting back. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Google-Street-View-not-in-Germany https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Google-Street-View-not-in-Germa...
- c0nfused 9y agoI have been using open street map in one of my projects and am considering dropping it. I had the fun experience last week to discover that this was one of the cities in north Texas. https://i.imgur.com/BkBcuzN.png https://i.imgur.com/BkBcuzN.png The "Boy's Bathroom Tascosa Drive In" Residents are hopefully not going to look at my app any time soon. I am now a bit concerned about the quality in the states as a whole.
- maxerickson 9y agoSo that was identified as vandalism in ~9 days and removed and the user has been banned from editing: http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1698922081/history http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1698922081/history http://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/1652 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/1652 Of course as a practical matter the block only applies to an account rather a person, but it makes the point to the person that the vandalism isn't welcome. I mostly mean to expand on how OSM deals with such things, not to argue whether or not that makes it suitable for your purposes.
- tinus_hn 9y agoIt's not like Google is immune from this kind of thing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/05/19/if-you-search-google-maps-for-the-n-word-it-gives-you-the-white-house/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/05/19...
- panglott 9y agoData for the US is still extremely sparse. Many US towns don't have addresses. But it is improving rapidly; mid-sized towns have been getting building outlines for a while. OSM Europe is far, far ahead of the US in what is mapped. But OSM has some advantages over the others. You can do Simple Indoor Tagging of your building, say for accessibility reasons, and you can even modify it later.
- s0rce 9y agoOpen street/hiking map is great for hiking trails but the lack of traffic info makes it much less useful for driving compared to google's offering.
- Stephen304 9y agoI absolutely love OSM, even though I usually use Google maps in my day to day. Mainly I strongly support the open licensing and how quickly and easy it is to contribute. I actually added ~500 house outlines and ~150 house addresses to my hometown in the past couple days - it gets really addicting! I really hope that one day OSM will be able to better compete with Google maps. I feel like there is a serious lack of OSM mobile apps. The only one I know of (that is acceptable) is Maps.me, but I find it too cluttered compared to Google maps.
- rurban 9y agoYou are right. In Germany and Austria OpenStreetMaps and Microsoft Maps are superior over Google Maps. But this has entirely political reasons. Back in the 80ies when we started working on these kind of mapping techniques Microsoft was the first to work on it (i.e. buy those companies, partner with institutes), and was the first to get the local government contracts for the flyover photos. Google had only access to the US satellite data, with a much lower resolution, Microsoft had access to the yearly 2D government overflights and even to the local stereo camera 3d images. 4x a year on 1000m. Very good data. Paired with streetview-like cars photographing the facades this was the future. Google didn't invent this, Microsoft partners (also working for NASA) did this. Some cities still only work together with Microsoft, they do have long contracts. So streetview is not public, 3d images are government only and 2d maps are behind. OpenStreetMaps solved this problem with crowdsourcing. More accurate, but not scalable. Google solved it technically, Microsoft politically. When I worked in city planning, I used to write such a 3d image software, which detects roofs, trees, cars, streets, and build an automatic 3d model out of it. These models were used to detect illegal buildings or enhancements, which brings in more taxes. They had no interest in making these maps public, only for certain architectural or city-planning contests.
- aluhut 9y agoQuite interesting insight. Thanks you for that.
- tripzilch 9y agoNothing but love. They are the ones doing it right.