6 ms·

May OpenStreetMap prevail!

jfoster 8y ago
OSM has impressive geographical data now, but in the meantime Google Maps has gone well beyond "we can help you find that street address." Their places data, reviews, photos, navigation, and street view are all adding a massive amount of value. They have shifted the goal posts.
- sapphire_tomb 8y ago
  I find most of the things you list add no value to me. Photos and reviews are of no interest to me in a navigation aid. In my home town at least (London), I frequently find their places data wrong with marked locations being several streets away from where they actually are. Finally, Street view, which previously I've found super useful, is being ruined in London, as the contractors who are providing the latest updates are phoning it in by submitting reams of data with the pictures taken at night, so you can't see anything in them (flash cameras being a super bad idea for mounting to a car). Edit: I submitted two reports of bad StreetMap pictures a couple of months ago on the issue of the pictures being taken at night. In both cases the bot which handles those reports rejected my categorising them as "of poor quality", and I heard no more about it. But prompted by writing this post, I've just been back to the two locations I reported (on opposite sides of central London, one in Hackney, one in Mayfair), and now find that the StreetMap data is once more pictures taken in daylight. So thanks Google - thanks for telling me I was full of shit, but actually fixing the problem.
- cf 8y ago
  I think there is a good argument to be made for crowdsourcing some of those as well.
  - jfoster 8y ago
    Absolutely. There could be some amazing projects and businesses built on top of this data if it were in OSM.
  - c0vfefe 8y ago
    That's how Google did it!
- tzfld 8y ago
  >Their places data, reviews, photos, navigation, and street view are all adding a massive amount of value. This is where OSM should move.
  - mtmail 8y ago
    There's https://openstreetcam.org/ https://openstreetcam.org/ and https://www.mapillary.com/ https://www.mapillary.com/ for anybody who want to contribute. It's a huge operational cost to run such a service for free. OSM doesn't run donation campaigns like wikipedia/wikimedia does.
  - aw3c2 8y ago
    No, OSM should focus on what it is and what it does well. Reviews and photos are bound to attract a lot of garbage and problems. Navigation sure, there is lots of that available on OSM data already. Street view is also already covered by mapilliary and openstreetcam.
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    OSM's success has largely come from being efficient and focused. Adding photos and Street View would move into areas where the project has no expertise. For navigation, on the other hand, it's already streets ahead (pun unintentional) of Google et al... for those of us who travel on foot or bike, that is!
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > in the meantime Google Maps has gone well beyond "we can help you find that street address." None of which has any real value to me.
philips 8y ago
How can I replicate the common UX of trip planning on my laptop and then send to phone with the directions with OSM? Ideally with offline maps. I really want to love OpenStreetMap but the usability gap is huge. I am happy to pay for something too.
- lucb1e 8y ago
  OsmAnd. Not sure you need to use a laptop at all with that, but you can also route over any gpx track so you can generate that on your laptop. The ux is of course not as good, but my girlfriend and I got used to it pretty quickly and use it for all our routing.
clydethefrog 8y ago
I wish there was an app using OSM that had at least some usability and design. I tried some but had to quit out frustration.
- cdubzzz 8y ago
  Not OSM, but I have been using HERE[0] with success for a while (if only to diversify off of Google products). Curious to know if anyone has done more research/has an opinion on their platform. [0] https://wego.here.com/ https://wego.here.com/
  - stordoff 8y ago
    I used it for a while as it was the maps provider on my Windows Phone, and it was fine. Not always as up-to-date as Google, but it was competitive.
- taneq 8y ago
  How long ago was that? OSMAnd+ has come along in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years.
- leokennis 8y ago
  Also, all of them (on iOS at least) "force" you to download maps for offline maps. I don't want some city I visit once in my lifetime permanently taking up storage...
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    Just delete it afterwards, the map download is usually only 30-100MB, and downloading it in advance means it will always be there on your trip, without needing data access.
- m_eiman 8y ago
  Guru Maps is pretty nice, available on iOS and Android.
- rmc 8y ago

OSM has impressive geographical data now, but in the meantime Google Maps has gone well beyond "we can help you find that street address." Their places data, reviews, photos, navigation, and street view are all adding a massive amount of value. They have shifted the goal posts.

sapphire_tomb 8y ago
I find most of the things you list add no value to me. Photos and reviews are of no interest to me in a navigation aid. In my home town at least (London), I frequently find their places data wrong with marked locations being several streets away from where they actually are. Finally, Street view, which previously I've found super useful, is being ruined in London, as the contractors who are providing the latest updates are phoning it in by submitting reams of data with the pictures taken at night, so you can't see anything in them (flash cameras being a super bad idea for mounting to a car). Edit: I submitted two reports of bad StreetMap pictures a couple of months ago on the issue of the pictures being taken at night. In both cases the bot which handles those reports rejected my categorising them as "of poor quality", and I heard no more about it. But prompted by writing this post, I've just been back to the two locations I reported (on opposite sides of central London, one in Hackney, one in Mayfair), and now find that the StreetMap data is once more pictures taken in daylight. So thanks Google - thanks for telling me I was full of shit, but actually fixing the problem.
cf 8y ago
I think there is a good argument to be made for crowdsourcing some of those as well.
- jfoster 8y ago
  Absolutely. There could be some amazing projects and businesses built on top of this data if it were in OSM.
- c0vfefe 8y ago
  That's how Google did it!
tzfld 8y ago
>Their places data, reviews, photos, navigation, and street view are all adding a massive amount of value. This is where OSM should move.
- mtmail 8y ago
  There's https://openstreetcam.org/ https://openstreetcam.org/ and https://www.mapillary.com/ https://www.mapillary.com/ for anybody who want to contribute. It's a huge operational cost to run such a service for free. OSM doesn't run donation campaigns like wikipedia/wikimedia does.
- aw3c2 8y ago
  No, OSM should focus on what it is and what it does well. Reviews and photos are bound to attract a lot of garbage and problems. Navigation sure, there is lots of that available on OSM data already. Street view is also already covered by mapilliary and openstreetcam.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  OSM's success has largely come from being efficient and focused. Adding photos and Street View would move into areas where the project has no expertise. For navigation, on the other hand, it's already streets ahead (pun unintentional) of Google et al... for those of us who travel on foot or bike, that is!
JohnFen 8y ago
> in the meantime Google Maps has gone well beyond "we can help you find that street address." None of which has any real value to me.

philips 8y ago

How can I replicate the common UX of trip planning on my laptop and then send to phone with the directions with OSM? Ideally with offline maps. I really want to love OpenStreetMap but the usability gap is huge. I am happy to pay for something too.

lucb1e 8y ago
OsmAnd. Not sure you need to use a laptop at all with that, but you can also route over any gpx track so you can generate that on your laptop. The ux is of course not as good, but my girlfriend and I got used to it pretty quickly and use it for all our routing.

clydethefrog 8y ago

I wish there was an app using OSM that had at least some usability and design. I tried some but had to quit out frustration.

cdubzzz 8y ago
Not OSM, but I have been using HERE[0] with success for a while (if only to diversify off of Google products). Curious to know if anyone has done more research/has an opinion on their platform. [0] https://wego.here.com/ https://wego.here.com/
- stordoff 8y ago
  I used it for a while as it was the maps provider on my Windows Phone, and it was fine. Not always as up-to-date as Google, but it was competitive.
taneq 8y ago
How long ago was that? OSMAnd+ has come along in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years.
leokennis 8y ago
Also, all of them (on iOS at least) "force" you to download maps for offline maps. I don't want some city I visit once in my lifetime permanently taking up storage...
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  Just delete it afterwards, the map download is usually only 30-100MB, and downloading it in advance means it will always be there on your trip, without needing data access.
m_eiman 8y ago
Guru Maps is pretty nice, available on iOS and Android.
rmc 8y ago