7 ms·

Your anecdote falls into the trap I see often when comparing OSS software vs proprietary. You’ve found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better. Howe

Your anecdote falls into the trap I see often when comparing OSS software vs proprietary. You’ve found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better. However, the opposite needs to be true for adoption. OSM needs to work better for 80% of the use cases, not the other 20.

wtallis 8y ago
Are gaps in cell coverage really that obscure a use case? Sure, if you're only using the maps to route you around traffic jams in your home town, offline maps aren't going to offer you any benefit. But I think most users also want their maps to continue to be reliable when heading out of town on a road trip. Google has improved the behavior of their maps app when data connectivity is interrupted, but it's still a sub-par experience and quite frustrating.
- criley2 8y ago
  Google makes it trivial to download maps for offline use, I have multiple states downloaded in Maps. Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating".
  - propogandist 8y ago
    by trivial, you mean logged into a google account where all 'offline' activity is synced and mapped to your account once connectivity is restored. I also find it hard to believe that Google maps offline can't give voice navigation (reverts to beeps) and that requires constant data connectivity... the app is constantly phoning home too.
    - brewrwe 8y ago
      Google Maps is pretty bad without fast, reliable data, I remember trying it on Sprint, no joy unless I could pull at least a megabit a second.
      - eigenvector 8y ago
        The problem is that there is no user-settable 'offline mode', so as soon as Google detects an Internet connection (even a very slow one) it starts trying to behave as if it's on a 100Mbps LTE connection. This makes many Google apps totally unusable on low-bandwidth networks. When you open apps like Hangouts, Google Maps, etc. on low-bandwidth connections, they immediately try to sync an onslaught of data before making the UI responsive based on the existing offline state. Data that could take hours to sync at 5kb/s. There's no reason I haven't have a text-only messaging conversation perfectly well on a 2G network. Except when Google tries to sync 50MB of pictures from a conversation I haven't even selected yet, and all of my 500 contacts' profile photos, before I can do anything else. Incidentally, this is why everyone outside of North America uses WhatsApp.
        brewrwe 8y ago
        Heh, I'm an avid Signal User due to that, not terribly much message syncing going on as the message database is stored on your device :3
        izacus 8y ago
        What are you talking about? There's literally a "WiFi only" toggle in Google Maps app.
        eigenvector 8y ago
        How well do you suppose that would work on say, a satellite connection over wi-fi?
      - UncleEntity 8y ago
        I have used it all day, every day I that I've worked in the last seven years on Sprint and very rarely have a problem. One strange thing I've noticed over the years is there's a difference on Android vs Apple -- can't count the times I've gone to the wrong place following the Android tablet in the car only to have to pull up the address on the iPhone to get there. When they first put the tablets in the cars I was using the navigation and it took me into the alley between the houses and "you have arrived"...in their backyard. Not very helpful. Honestly, though, I rarely use navigation unless I'm feeling really lazy or going somewhere complicated enough that I can't figure out how to get there by just glancing at the map. 100% don't use navigation on the stupid tablet in the car.
  - avip 8y ago
    Unless the place you need is "unavailable for download".
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    It may be trivial, but I have actually never found a way to mark them and assure myself the download was complete and the maps are available before a trip.
    - criley2 8y ago
      The download included a persistent notification informing me of the entire download process, including percentage and a finish message. Perhaps you disabled notifications from the app.
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        Ouch! Yes, I did disable it. That explains it, thanks. Google Maps keeps notifying me of "you are at X, would you like to review it?" So it can't make useful notification anymore either.
  - wtallis 8y ago
    > Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating". Selecting areas to download is more of a hassle than with OSMAnd, and the map data requires more storage space. I've also frequently experienced severe degradation in the detail of the voice prompts for turn by turn navigation when the phone doesn't have a data connection, where the phone only saying "in a quarter mile, turn right" without giving me a street name or exit number, let alone lane information.
  - puzzle 8y ago
    At some point, there was also this undocumented feature where it fetches not just the directions, but a little extra data so it can reroute you on the device if you miss a turn and your phone has gone offline. It only works for small detours, does not take traffic into account, etc.
    - lorenzhs 8y ago
      There's a paper on how this works from Microsoft Research and KIT (where all of the commonly used routing techniques were developed!): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/corridor_alenex.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
      - puzzle 8y ago
        Yeah, Google hired Robert Geisberger...
themodelplumber 8y ago
OSS's greatest leverage points have always been in the niches, the cases where _if_ it's useful in your situation, you are a very lucky person indeed. Having read the article I think it's using a great little leverage point: Do you have a website with a map? Does the map not work anymore? ("Yikes, will my map stop working," people think) OSS doesn't have to win big popularity battles; the little cases here and there just add up over time. Soon it's in the background of everything, even proprietary software, because it's so useful that migration and contributions to the source code make sense.
- brewrwe 8y ago
  More like anywhere vaugely rural, Google Maps seems to fail. Going out to the San Juans? Have fun with missing business listings, incorrect road traces and names, or worse. Just in the past decade Kitsap County (just across the water from Seattle) has renumbered 300k addresses. Google Maps is buying their address database from a vendor that rarely pulls this publicly posted data, thus leaving Google a few years behind (except for spotty user corrections). OSM comparatively gets this data right from the county every week, which is great since they're renumbering 30k more addresses currently. Google will take a few more years to get any of this data if they stick to their current operational model.
  - eigenvector 8y ago
    Entire countries and continents are far more detailed on OSM than Google. There's a feedback cycle where having lots of active users to passively harvest data or receive user-submitted corrections from improves your map quality. Well, Google Maps is a really bloated app that can barely open on the budget Android phones people use in most developing countries (hell, GMaps pegs the CPU on a 2-year old flagship for several seconds just starting the app). When nobody uses Google Maps, Google Maps will never have good street/address data. In developing countries there's no official government office to get this data from, just user data.
    - sho_hn 8y ago
      It strikes me as obvious that what Google should do is support OSM upstream and use OSM data in their product, just as what they do with Wikipedia.
nashashmi 8y ago
> found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better. Isn't that the entire point of open source technologies? If a platform is open source, then you can make whatever custom changes you personally need and make it work for your particularly scenario. Downloadable maps, archivable maps, platform independent maps, faster loading maps, more accurate maps, more niche data centric maps, and fail-safe maps are all examples of maps that a particular person needs in a particular setting at a particular time. It is not software for the masses, just software for the massive number of little things you could possibly need.
ghaff 8y ago
I'm not sure why it has to be either/or. I use Google Maps routinely for traffic routing among other things. I also routinely use OSM to have offline maps when traveling, for hiking, and various other things.
marcosdumay 8y ago
Working without a network is niche now? Anywhere you go far from a city will lack a network.
- eigenvector 8y ago
  Or working on a slow, spotty network, which is par for the course for 'the next billion users' that tech execs keep talking about.
  - ufo 8y ago
    Or if your mobile connection has strict data caps...
- whatsstolat 8y ago
  Also Here was useful to me when I burned up my data allowance.
- e3b0x1 8y ago
  It’s really useful when you’re traveling abroad and might not have access to any data right away.
tiatia123 8y ago
You obviously did not read the previous post or you don't know what HERE maps are.

wtallis 8y ago

Are gaps in cell coverage really that obscure a use case? Sure, if you're only using the maps to route you around traffic jams in your home town, offline maps aren't going to offer you any benefit. But I think most users also want their maps to continue to be reliable when heading out of town on a road trip. Google has improved the behavior of their maps app when data connectivity is interrupted, but it's still a sub-par experience and quite frustrating.

criley2 8y ago
Google makes it trivial to download maps for offline use, I have multiple states downloaded in Maps. Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating".
- propogandist 8y ago
  by trivial, you mean logged into a google account where all 'offline' activity is synced and mapped to your account once connectivity is restored. I also find it hard to believe that Google maps offline can't give voice navigation (reverts to beeps) and that requires constant data connectivity... the app is constantly phoning home too.
  - brewrwe 8y ago
    Google Maps is pretty bad without fast, reliable data, I remember trying it on Sprint, no joy unless I could pull at least a megabit a second.
    - eigenvector 8y ago
      The problem is that there is no user-settable 'offline mode', so as soon as Google detects an Internet connection (even a very slow one) it starts trying to behave as if it's on a 100Mbps LTE connection. This makes many Google apps totally unusable on low-bandwidth networks. When you open apps like Hangouts, Google Maps, etc. on low-bandwidth connections, they immediately try to sync an onslaught of data before making the UI responsive based on the existing offline state. Data that could take hours to sync at 5kb/s. There's no reason I haven't have a text-only messaging conversation perfectly well on a 2G network. Except when Google tries to sync 50MB of pictures from a conversation I haven't even selected yet, and all of my 500 contacts' profile photos, before I can do anything else. Incidentally, this is why everyone outside of North America uses WhatsApp.
      - brewrwe 8y ago
        Heh, I'm an avid Signal User due to that, not terribly much message syncing going on as the message database is stored on your device :3
      - izacus 8y ago
        What are you talking about? There's literally a "WiFi only" toggle in Google Maps app.
        eigenvector 8y ago
        How well do you suppose that would work on say, a satellite connection over wi-fi?
    - UncleEntity 8y ago
      I have used it all day, every day I that I've worked in the last seven years on Sprint and very rarely have a problem. One strange thing I've noticed over the years is there's a difference on Android vs Apple -- can't count the times I've gone to the wrong place following the Android tablet in the car only to have to pull up the address on the iPhone to get there. When they first put the tablets in the cars I was using the navigation and it took me into the alley between the houses and "you have arrived"...in their backyard. Not very helpful. Honestly, though, I rarely use navigation unless I'm feeling really lazy or going somewhere complicated enough that I can't figure out how to get there by just glancing at the map. 100% don't use navigation on the stupid tablet in the car.
- avip 8y ago
  Unless the place you need is "unavailable for download".
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  It may be trivial, but I have actually never found a way to mark them and assure myself the download was complete and the maps are available before a trip.
  - criley2 8y ago
    The download included a persistent notification informing me of the entire download process, including percentage and a finish message. Perhaps you disabled notifications from the app.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      Ouch! Yes, I did disable it. That explains it, thanks. Google Maps keeps notifying me of "you are at X, would you like to review it?" So it can't make useful notification anymore either.
- wtallis 8y ago
  > Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating". Selecting areas to download is more of a hassle than with OSMAnd, and the map data requires more storage space. I've also frequently experienced severe degradation in the detail of the voice prompts for turn by turn navigation when the phone doesn't have a data connection, where the phone only saying "in a quarter mile, turn right" without giving me a street name or exit number, let alone lane information.
- puzzle 8y ago
  At some point, there was also this undocumented feature where it fetches not just the directions, but a little extra data so it can reroute you on the device if you miss a turn and your phone has gone offline. It only works for small detours, does not take traffic into account, etc.
  - lorenzhs 8y ago
    There's a paper on how this works from Microsoft Research and KIT (where all of the commonly used routing techniques were developed!): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/corridor_alenex.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
    - puzzle 8y ago
      Yeah, Google hired Robert Geisberger...

themodelplumber 8y ago

OSS's greatest leverage points have always been in the niches, the cases where _if_ it's useful in your situation, you are a very lucky person indeed. Having read the article I think it's using a great little leverage point: Do you have a website with a map? Does the map not work anymore? ("Yikes, will my map stop working," people think) OSS doesn't have to win big popularity battles; the little cases here and there just add up over time. Soon it's in the background of everything, even proprietary software, because it's so useful that migration and contributions to the source code make sense.

brewrwe 8y ago
More like anywhere vaugely rural, Google Maps seems to fail. Going out to the San Juans? Have fun with missing business listings, incorrect road traces and names, or worse. Just in the past decade Kitsap County (just across the water from Seattle) has renumbered 300k addresses. Google Maps is buying their address database from a vendor that rarely pulls this publicly posted data, thus leaving Google a few years behind (except for spotty user corrections). OSM comparatively gets this data right from the county every week, which is great since they're renumbering 30k more addresses currently. Google will take a few more years to get any of this data if they stick to their current operational model.
- eigenvector 8y ago
  Entire countries and continents are far more detailed on OSM than Google. There's a feedback cycle where having lots of active users to passively harvest data or receive user-submitted corrections from improves your map quality. Well, Google Maps is a really bloated app that can barely open on the budget Android phones people use in most developing countries (hell, GMaps pegs the CPU on a 2-year old flagship for several seconds just starting the app). When nobody uses Google Maps, Google Maps will never have good street/address data. In developing countries there's no official government office to get this data from, just user data.
  - sho_hn 8y ago
    It strikes me as obvious that what Google should do is support OSM upstream and use OSM data in their product, just as what they do with Wikipedia.

nashashmi 8y ago

> found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better. Isn't that the entire point of open source technologies? If a platform is open source, then you can make whatever custom changes you personally need and make it work for your particularly scenario. Downloadable maps, archivable maps, platform independent maps, faster loading maps, more accurate maps, more niche data centric maps, and fail-safe maps are all examples of maps that a particular person needs in a particular setting at a particular time. It is not software for the masses, just software for the massive number of little things you could possibly need.

ghaff 8y ago

I'm not sure why it has to be either/or. I use Google Maps routinely for traffic routing among other things. I also routinely use OSM to have offline maps when traveling, for hiking, and various other things.

marcosdumay 8y ago

Working without a network is niche now? Anywhere you go far from a city will lack a network.

eigenvector 8y ago
Or working on a slow, spotty network, which is par for the course for 'the next billion users' that tech execs keep talking about.
- ufo 8y ago
  Or if your mobile connection has strict data caps...
whatsstolat 8y ago
Also Here was useful to me when I burned up my data allowance.
e3b0x1 8y ago
It’s really useful when you’re traveling abroad and might not have access to any data right away.

tiatia123 8y ago

You obviously did not read the previous post or you don't know what HERE maps are.