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I cannot really express how much praise I have for Organic Maps. It has got me out of the mire a couple of times due to the complete offline capability and pape

by baz00 3y ago

I cannot really express how much praise I have for Organic Maps. It has got me out of the mire a couple of times due to the complete offline capability and paper maps being completely wrong. The OSM base layer is better than a lot of native maps out there. Not only that, you can search for a toilet almost anywhere, including in the middle of nowhere in central Asia, and it found one!

shellfishgene 3y ago
Maybe I'm a little jaded by how the app economy works nowadays, but I find it almost suspicious how fast development seems and how well supported Organic Maps is. At least the high level of quality is explained by the fact that the lead developers seem to be the founders of the original maps.me.
- biodranik 3y ago
  We're not alone, our community and contributors are helping us!
  - xNeil 3y ago
    Thanks for the work you and your community is doing! Quick question - why did you fork maps.me in the first place? And how do you make money?
    - matkoniecz 3y ago
      > And how do you make money? From what I see, https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/ is asking for donations ( https://organicmaps.app/donate/ https://organicmaps.app/donate/ )
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      Maps.me got forked because it was sold from the original company to a new one (IIRC more than once). The most recent company to purchase Maps.me is in crypto, so their focus has been on e.g. adding a crypto wallet – yes, a crypto wallet in a maps app – instead of actually developing the app further for maps users.
      - palata 3y ago
        Was Maps.me open source before, or did they somehow manage to make it open source just before it got bought by the cryptobros? That would be a pretty great move IMO.
        milliams 3y ago
        I believe that it was always open-source.
        dvdkon 3y ago
        I remember them promising to open-source it early on and then waiting at least a few months for the code. At the time I was jaded and thought they'd go back on the promise, but I'm grateful they didn't. It's the most polished FLOSS map app.
        johannes1234321 3y ago
        It wasn't always. It started as MapsWithMe by a swiss company, which gave it away for free with a pro version (for which I paid), then mail.ru took it over and made it opensource (while all my build attempts failed) and then a new owner later added tons of ads and stuff into it and made it closed. Then some people forked the slightly older open source version.
        ihatehn 3y ago
        Those people are the original founders who took it open source, which was a great move since otherwise it'd have become just another piece of shovelware getting enshittified into oblivion.
    - biodranik 3y ago
      New owners of Maps.Me ruined the offline UX in one of the updates in 2020. We could not allow our "baby" to die like this. The project runs on our own money and users' donations. With enough support, we can replace Google Maps in most use-cases in the future. Because we are listening to our users, and are actively using Organic Maps ourselves.
  - someone321 3y ago
    [dead]
- ihatehn 3y ago
  I'm a volunteer working on an improvement to the spoken directions and I can say with firsthand experience that Organic Maps' development is not suspiciously fast. It is simply a fork of Maps.ME which has gone to crap, so when you look at features per year over the whole lifespan it's really not a lot. I think OSM is growing in popularity especially as more people realize that FAANG are awful and so we're seeing more activity lately, but let's just say that it's taken me a year to get around to working on this task again (is it just easier to accomplish things during Back to School week and Christmas-New Years' week?) and in that time I have not had many merge conflicts to deal with. It's getting better, and things are happening more quickly, but certainly not suspiciously-quickly. OM has been a thing since 2021 and I've been trying to ditch Google since 2015 so I've been around for awhile seeing the progress: much slower than I'd like, but still remarkable. Certainly not comparable in any way to a VC-funded startup that can churn out a product in months, this is funded by donations and volunteer work.
rqtwteye 3y ago
Organic Maps is great. I just wish OSM worked on search more. They are behind there.
- mrd3v0 3y ago
  Which should be an exciting project any person can work on, given the decent amount of metadata OSM provides.
- biodranik 3y ago
  We're actively improving our search in every release. Stay tuned!
- ihatehn 3y ago
  The main issue with OSM search at least in America is a lack of addresses. Anyone can help with this by importing addresses from the National Address Database: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/watmildon/diary/400812 https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/watmildon/diary/400812
zikduruqe 3y ago
As a cyclist, I use Organic Maps to add drinking water sources, shelters, repair stations, fix biking routes and lanes using just a mobile app to update OSM when I am out and about.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  Thanks for that! Editing the map on a bike can be a hassle though. I tried many options and came to conclusion that a 360° camera on the helmet and a physical Bluetooth button to take audio notes is the easiest possible setup.
  - Vinnl 3y ago
    If you both don't know about StreetComplete yet, you should check it out: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme
    - orbital-decay 3y ago
      Yeah I'm often using StreetComplete when walking in a city, but on a bike any operation with the phone involves stopping and switching the context. Besides, SC is intended to fill the missing or fix existing data, and sometimes I need more than that (adding/fixing paths and objects, for example). So I just record an audio note while passing by something, and later on I import the video/timelapse and edit it on my computer, which is much faster than doing that while cycling.
      - aembleton 3y ago
        Worth looking at SCEE [1] for adding objects, unfortunatelly it doesn't do paths. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete.expert/ https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete.e...
      - MayeulC 3y ago
        I also started using EveryDoor recently, which strikes a Nice middle ground betweek StreetComplete qnd Vespucci. https://f-droid.org/packages/info.zverev.ilya.every_door/ https://f-droid.org/packages/info.zverev.ilya.every_door/ https://every-door.app/ https://every-door.app/

by baz00 3y ago

shellfishgene 3y ago

Maybe I'm a little jaded by how the app economy works nowadays, but I find it almost suspicious how fast development seems and how well supported Organic Maps is. At least the high level of quality is explained by the fact that the lead developers seem to be the founders of the original maps.me.

biodranik 3y ago
We're not alone, our community and contributors are helping us!
- xNeil 3y ago
  Thanks for the work you and your community is doing! Quick question - why did you fork maps.me in the first place? And how do you make money?
  - matkoniecz 3y ago
    > And how do you make money? From what I see, https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/ is asking for donations ( https://organicmaps.app/donate/ https://organicmaps.app/donate/ )
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    Maps.me got forked because it was sold from the original company to a new one (IIRC more than once). The most recent company to purchase Maps.me is in crypto, so their focus has been on e.g. adding a crypto wallet – yes, a crypto wallet in a maps app – instead of actually developing the app further for maps users.
    - palata 3y ago
      Was Maps.me open source before, or did they somehow manage to make it open source just before it got bought by the cryptobros? That would be a pretty great move IMO.
      - milliams 3y ago
        I believe that it was always open-source.
        dvdkon 3y ago
        I remember them promising to open-source it early on and then waiting at least a few months for the code. At the time I was jaded and thought they'd go back on the promise, but I'm grateful they didn't. It's the most polished FLOSS map app.
        johannes1234321 3y ago
        It wasn't always. It started as MapsWithMe by a swiss company, which gave it away for free with a pro version (for which I paid), then mail.ru took it over and made it opensource (while all my build attempts failed) and then a new owner later added tons of ads and stuff into it and made it closed. Then some people forked the slightly older open source version.
        ihatehn 3y ago
        Those people are the original founders who took it open source, which was a great move since otherwise it'd have become just another piece of shovelware getting enshittified into oblivion.
  - biodranik 3y ago
    New owners of Maps.Me ruined the offline UX in one of the updates in 2020. We could not allow our "baby" to die like this. The project runs on our own money and users' donations. With enough support, we can replace Google Maps in most use-cases in the future. Because we are listening to our users, and are actively using Organic Maps ourselves.
- someone321 3y ago
  [dead]
ihatehn 3y ago
I'm a volunteer working on an improvement to the spoken directions and I can say with firsthand experience that Organic Maps' development is not suspiciously fast. It is simply a fork of Maps.ME which has gone to crap, so when you look at features per year over the whole lifespan it's really not a lot. I think OSM is growing in popularity especially as more people realize that FAANG are awful and so we're seeing more activity lately, but let's just say that it's taken me a year to get around to working on this task again (is it just easier to accomplish things during Back to School week and Christmas-New Years' week?) and in that time I have not had many merge conflicts to deal with. It's getting better, and things are happening more quickly, but certainly not suspiciously-quickly. OM has been a thing since 2021 and I've been trying to ditch Google since 2015 so I've been around for awhile seeing the progress: much slower than I'd like, but still remarkable. Certainly not comparable in any way to a VC-funded startup that can churn out a product in months, this is funded by donations and volunteer work.

rqtwteye 3y ago

Organic Maps is great. I just wish OSM worked on search more. They are behind there.

mrd3v0 3y ago
Which should be an exciting project any person can work on, given the decent amount of metadata OSM provides.
biodranik 3y ago
We're actively improving our search in every release. Stay tuned!
ihatehn 3y ago
The main issue with OSM search at least in America is a lack of addresses. Anyone can help with this by importing addresses from the National Address Database: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/watmildon/diary/400812 https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/watmildon/diary/400812

zikduruqe 3y ago

As a cyclist, I use Organic Maps to add drinking water sources, shelters, repair stations, fix biking routes and lanes using just a mobile app to update OSM when I am out and about.

orbital-decay 3y ago
Thanks for that! Editing the map on a bike can be a hassle though. I tried many options and came to conclusion that a 360° camera on the helmet and a physical Bluetooth button to take audio notes is the easiest possible setup.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  If you both don't know about StreetComplete yet, you should check it out: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme
  - orbital-decay 3y ago
    Yeah I'm often using StreetComplete when walking in a city, but on a bike any operation with the phone involves stopping and switching the context. Besides, SC is intended to fill the missing or fix existing data, and sometimes I need more than that (adding/fixing paths and objects, for example). So I just record an audio note while passing by something, and later on I import the video/timelapse and edit it on my computer, which is much faster than doing that while cycling.
    - aembleton 3y ago
      Worth looking at SCEE [1] for adding objects, unfortunatelly it doesn't do paths. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete.expert/ https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete.e...
    - MayeulC 3y ago
      I also started using EveryDoor recently, which strikes a Nice middle ground betweek StreetComplete qnd Vespucci. https://f-droid.org/packages/info.zverev.ilya.every_door/ https://f-droid.org/packages/info.zverev.ilya.every_door/ https://every-door.app/ https://every-door.app/