6 ms·

Mapy.cz is far better than Google in case of Slovakia or Czech Republic. They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellite

Mapy.cz is far better than Google in case of Slovakia or Czech Republic. They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites. Also these contain all the hiking, cycling and other routes. The native Android and iOS apps work great and support offline maps - you can download the whole map for a country with one click. Google Maps is unusable for sport or hiking because you only see a large green blob instead of the terrain with contour lines with altitude markings, all trails and roads and POI. Yes, Mapy.cz can't compete with car navigation, but everything else is miles better (and navigation on foot is better too).

morsch 6y ago
Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking. But it's not just a map, it's got the yellow pages, Yelp, and, depending on where you are, various other things like hotel booking and public transport routing thrown in. My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Much of this is stuff the software based on OSM isn't even trying, or doing so only very half heartedly, as far as I am aware. On the flipside, OSM is, in many places, peerless in its core competency, a detailed map that everyone can use.
- Moru 6y ago
  To be fair the crowded functionality in a map is something only Google could pull of since they are tracking all phones and locations. And it still has a bunch of restaurants listed in my neighbourhood that is clearly only containing rental houses and very outdated roads compared to Openstreetmaps.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  > My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Unfortunately it's been completely useless in my area. I wish stores just allowed access to the cctv cameras on their parking lots so I could estimate for myself.
  - uptown 6y ago
    That’s valuable data for sale by other vendors.
    - faitswulff 6y ago
      What vendors are in this business?
      - uptown 6y ago
        Foursquare, but not with parking lot data, to my knowledge: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/alternative-data-future-of-investing/ https://www.cbinsights.com/research/alternative-data-future-... Satellite image companies sell this type of alternative data to buyers: https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/how-hedge-funds-use-satellite-images-to-beat-wall-street-and-main-street/ https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/how-hedge-funds-use-satel... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-value-satellite-images-investing/586009/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-v... Some of the vendors are RS Metrics, Descartes Labs and Orbital Insight.
        faitswulff 6y ago
        Unfortunate that none of these, even when purchased, would be a substitute for actually looking at the parking lot in real time.
- joejoebags 6y ago
  In the US, I use AllTrails for hiking, which I think is built on Mapbox. Hiking, hunting, fishing, running, biking—all interesting examples of niche uses for maps that naturally lend themselves to separate user experiences.
- marbu 6y ago
  Mapy.cz covers most of other use cases as well, including business info, public transport and other details. I personally find mapy.cz more tailored to pedestrian/public transport navigation within european city. The only feature which I go to google maps is the mentioned estimation of how crowded a place is (as this comes from android data, and google has an clear edge there).
  - morsch 6y ago
    The software supports the use cases but the data isn't there. Certainly for where I'm living. Most of the information is missing -- eg apparently there are no pediatricians in my city, many opening times are missing, in my area there are no photos, no reviews; other stuff is wrong. It's more comprehensive in Prague, though from a brief look Google still has more of everything. I'm not saying that OSM (and other projects, but particularly OSM) can't catch up, especially when it comes to factual information. It has already shown that crowdsourcing can do better than Google at pure mapping.
    - jdmichal 6y ago
      Does OSM support address-based resolution of places? AFAIK, Google is getting things like store hours when it crawls websites. Which, of course, it's doing anyway for indexing. As long as it can figure out the address and the store hours from the website, it can put them on the map. In the meantime, OSM generally doesn't even have place addresses in my experience. If I could resolve addresses to places in OSM, then I could easily write some scrappers to help out with filling in other data.
      - matkoniecz 6y ago
        Addresses and exact shop locations can be added to OSM. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.07298/19.93528 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.07298/19.93528 where it is mapped at least in a small part. > then I could easily write some scrappers to help out with filling in other data. Note that it may not possible due to copyright issues
- kingaillas 6y ago
  > Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking I find openstreetmap.org to be great for showing hiking trails. At least for my local area.
  - reportingsjr 6y ago
    I've spent a ton of time mapping out trails in my region on openstreetmap. I've found the issue now is the interface. The map data is only good if it can be easily read. I'm starting to look at workflows for taking osm trail data and trying to make nice maps, but wow it is not easy to do!
    - otherme123 6y ago
      Thanks! I use mapy.cz for everything, but my main reason are the hiking routes. I've contibuted some routes also (and city data using streetComplete), but certainly not a ton.
  - mongol 6y ago
    Agreed. It has the potential to be best bar none for this. Where it isn't, it is probably only a matter of time.
- rurp 6y ago
  Another big issue I've had with using Google Maps for outdoor trips is their awful offline sattelite map saving. There is no way to specify which layers to save and the level Google chooses could be anywhere from decent to utterly unusable. I've had saved maps that turned into blurry blobs the minute I lost phone service countless times. I eventually gave up on using it and switched to a proper topo map app that actually lets me set the offline resolution and it has been vastly better.
gruez 6y ago
>They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites ...as opposed to google maps not using aerial photography? AFAIK most urban "satellite" picture on google maps is also taken with planes.
btbuildem 6y ago
Wow, you weren't kidding. Poking around real quick, the aerial imagery is super high resolution, on par with what you'd get with a consumer-grade drone flyover.
RivieraKid 6y ago
That is true, it's an order of magnitude of difference. For example, look at this location: https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8929744&y=50.0331743&z=14&l=0 https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8929744&y=50.0331743&z=14... And compare it to Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0297578,13.8901237,13.85z https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0297578,13.8901237,13.85z Google Maps is substantially better at search and places data but this advantage is slowly shrinking. Also, Mapy.cz has a tracker feature with online sync and gpx export.

morsch 6y ago

Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking. But it's not just a map, it's got the yellow pages, Yelp, and, depending on where you are, various other things like hotel booking and public transport routing thrown in. My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Much of this is stuff the software based on OSM isn't even trying, or doing so only very half heartedly, as far as I am aware. On the flipside, OSM is, in many places, peerless in its core competency, a detailed map that everyone can use.

Moru 6y ago
To be fair the crowded functionality in a map is something only Google could pull of since they are tracking all phones and locations. And it still has a bunch of restaurants listed in my neighbourhood that is clearly only containing rental houses and very outdated roads compared to Openstreetmaps.
faitswulff 6y ago
> My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Unfortunately it's been completely useless in my area. I wish stores just allowed access to the cctv cameras on their parking lots so I could estimate for myself.
- uptown 6y ago
  That’s valuable data for sale by other vendors.
  - faitswulff 6y ago
    What vendors are in this business?
    - uptown 6y ago
      Foursquare, but not with parking lot data, to my knowledge: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/alternative-data-future-of-investing/ https://www.cbinsights.com/research/alternative-data-future-... Satellite image companies sell this type of alternative data to buyers: https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/how-hedge-funds-use-satellite-images-to-beat-wall-street-and-main-street/ https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/how-hedge-funds-use-satel... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-value-satellite-images-investing/586009/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-v... Some of the vendors are RS Metrics, Descartes Labs and Orbital Insight.
      - faitswulff 6y ago
        Unfortunate that none of these, even when purchased, would be a substitute for actually looking at the parking lot in real time.
joejoebags 6y ago
In the US, I use AllTrails for hiking, which I think is built on Mapbox. Hiking, hunting, fishing, running, biking—all interesting examples of niche uses for maps that naturally lend themselves to separate user experiences.
marbu 6y ago
Mapy.cz covers most of other use cases as well, including business info, public transport and other details. I personally find mapy.cz more tailored to pedestrian/public transport navigation within european city. The only feature which I go to google maps is the mentioned estimation of how crowded a place is (as this comes from android data, and google has an clear edge there).
- morsch 6y ago
  The software supports the use cases but the data isn't there. Certainly for where I'm living. Most of the information is missing -- eg apparently there are no pediatricians in my city, many opening times are missing, in my area there are no photos, no reviews; other stuff is wrong. It's more comprehensive in Prague, though from a brief look Google still has more of everything. I'm not saying that OSM (and other projects, but particularly OSM) can't catch up, especially when it comes to factual information. It has already shown that crowdsourcing can do better than Google at pure mapping.
  - jdmichal 6y ago
    Does OSM support address-based resolution of places? AFAIK, Google is getting things like store hours when it crawls websites. Which, of course, it's doing anyway for indexing. As long as it can figure out the address and the store hours from the website, it can put them on the map. In the meantime, OSM generally doesn't even have place addresses in my experience. If I could resolve addresses to places in OSM, then I could easily write some scrappers to help out with filling in other data.
    - matkoniecz 6y ago
      Addresses and exact shop locations can be added to OSM. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.07298/19.93528 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.07298/19.93528 where it is mapped at least in a small part. > then I could easily write some scrappers to help out with filling in other data. Note that it may not possible due to copyright issues
kingaillas 6y ago
> Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking I find openstreetmap.org to be great for showing hiking trails. At least for my local area.
- reportingsjr 6y ago
  I've spent a ton of time mapping out trails in my region on openstreetmap. I've found the issue now is the interface. The map data is only good if it can be easily read. I'm starting to look at workflows for taking osm trail data and trying to make nice maps, but wow it is not easy to do!
  - otherme123 6y ago
    Thanks! I use mapy.cz for everything, but my main reason are the hiking routes. I've contibuted some routes also (and city data using streetComplete), but certainly not a ton.
- mongol 6y ago
  Agreed. It has the potential to be best bar none for this. Where it isn't, it is probably only a matter of time.
rurp 6y ago
Another big issue I've had with using Google Maps for outdoor trips is their awful offline sattelite map saving. There is no way to specify which layers to save and the level Google chooses could be anywhere from decent to utterly unusable. I've had saved maps that turned into blurry blobs the minute I lost phone service countless times. I eventually gave up on using it and switched to a proper topo map app that actually lets me set the offline resolution and it has been vastly better.

gruez 6y ago

>They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites ...as opposed to google maps not using aerial photography? AFAIK most urban "satellite" picture on google maps is also taken with planes.

btbuildem 6y ago

Wow, you weren't kidding. Poking around real quick, the aerial imagery is super high resolution, on par with what you'd get with a consumer-grade drone flyover.

RivieraKid 6y ago

That is true, it's an order of magnitude of difference. For example, look at this location: https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8929744&y=50.0331743&z=14&l=0 https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8929744&y=50.0331743&z=14... And compare it to Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0297578,13.8901237,13.85z https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0297578,13.8901237,13.85z Google Maps is substantially better at search and places data but this advantage is slowly shrinking. Also, Mapy.cz has a tracker feature with online sync and gpx export.