6 ms·

OsmAPP – A Universal OpenStreetMap App

200 points by maelito 3y ago

maelito 3y ago
Code is here https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp
csk111165 3y ago
Can we use the APIs like Google map for our own delivery app?
agazso 3y ago
This is excellent, I was looking for an open source replacement for Google Maps on the web for a while. And on the top of it, it is open source! I am heading to github and see if I can contribute.
- rijoja 3y ago
  Personally I am using [organicmaps](https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/) which is using OpenStreetMap data, and it works really well.
  - maelito 3y ago
    Organic Maps has no Web app. Well, they have a very bare Web app, unusable. I wish (for the general public) there was both a Web app, and mobiles apps under the same names and maturity.
    - fatal69100 3y ago
      You can also use https://www.qwant.com/maps https://www.qwant.com/maps as OSM base web app
      - maelito 3y ago
        I wish, but like I said below, it's not developped anymore. The company got bought by the french cloud company OVH. There are multiple complaints of stale OSM data in the github issues. Let's hope they want to make a public and open source map part of their europaen google alternative.
    - rijoja 3y ago
      For a web app I'm fine with using https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/.
  - cf100clunk 3y ago
    I'm wondering if you've tried Magic Lane products and can compare? https://www.magiclane.com https://www.magiclane.com
    - bubu-bln 3y ago
      MagicEarth (which seems to be a MagicLane product; https://www.magicearth.com/ https://www.magicearth.com/) is my daily driver navigation app. I prefer it over Google maps for everything routing related. The only thing Google is better at is showing me relevant metainformation about places (when is this restaurant open? What is this doctor's telephone number and website?), and that's the only reason I'm keeping maps on my phone.
    - rijoja 3y ago
      Can't say that I have no, but I would like to try it out given the chance!
  - kragen 3y ago
    oh nice, and it's on f-droid too. is it more responsive than the fairly sluggish osmand~?
    - hjek 3y ago
      OrganicMaps is incredibly snappy compared to OsmAnd~.
      - kragen 3y ago
        thanks!
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    maps.me is the most popular app of that kind.
    - rijoja 3y ago
      Never heard about it! Thank you very much! [edit]Apparently organic maps is maps.me without the tracking[/edit]
ksjskskskkk 3y ago
webgl :/
- stereo 3y ago
  What's wrong with webgl, isn't it supported by the vast majority of browsers and devices?
  - maelito 3y ago
    98,5 % https://caniuse.com/?search=webgl https://caniuse.com/?search=webgl Not using Webgl is one of the reasons why openstreetmap.org looks so dated. You can't even click on a point, and it's raster lays.
  - ksjskskskkk 3y ago
    it's todays number one attack vector. people who disable js (very few in this early adopter crowd) then allowlist sites to have js but no webgl. it's something better left for games or to increment visuals. basing your ui on it like doing js only sites in 2023
wombat-man 3y ago
Wow, can't find my parents house even with the exact address. Kinda rough but a good start I guess.
- xethos 3y ago
  That's not a knock against the app, but something you can actually fix - this would use the OSM backend, and adding your parent's address would take all of ten minutes if you care to do so.
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    Sure, but if it's to be usable as a replacement for other map apps, that's time that'll add up pretty quickly. It's a nice proof of concept but there's a long ways to go.
    - emj 3y ago
      You are missing the point. If you do this commercially and have that need, you usually have a separate geocoding. This data can not be combined with OSM unless it is already freely available. The point is that the data in OSM is freely useable in what ever way you want to as long as you publish the data used to create your maps. There are no available map data that allow this except Openstreetmap.
  - mastazi 3y ago
    This app's search is clearly not the same as the one on openstreetmap.org On openstreetmap.org I found my address with no issues - I typed the address in the search box, and got a pointer on the map showing me where it is. On OsmApp, the same exact query resulted in more than 19,000 results and the app proceeded to highlight them all on the map, which effectively means it's impossible to actually locate the address.
- mminer237 3y ago
  Most buildings in OSM aren't actually tagged with numbers. (A lot of houses aren't even marked as existing buildings in my experience.) It should be have their street at least, but adding building numbers is just too time-consuming for outside of cities it seems.
Freak_NL 3y ago
As an OpenStreetMap contributor this looks weird. Some names are off from what is recorded in OpenStreetMap. I wonder if… …and sure enough. This app uses one of those moronic map styles which doesn't just use the names for places in the OpenStreetMap database, but also draws them for Wikidata. Great. Those often suck for use on a map, because they tend to include stuff like 'Province X' for a province named 'X', and because the translations stored in Wikidata are often archaic or plain wrong. The argument the developers who use the wikidata IDs stored in many place name objects to draw in 'missing' translations is that this is surely better than just showing the local name, but this completely misses that in OpenStreetMap name data is already really quite accurate, whereas Wikidata… As an OpenStreetMap contributor I am not interested in having to keep two databases up-to-date to get names (exonyms and endonyms) to show up correctly. I know a number of developers are pushing this dumb solution, but it is hurting the project more than it is helping.
- tuukkah 3y ago
  Map labels are complicated and Wikidata is (in general) a better place than OSM to sort that out on the data level. Consider all the various *name* tags in OSM and how they are (mis-)used to please specific renderers and geocoders. E.g. do you apply (semi-)standard abbreviations of street names or do you write names in full so that they fill the map? It's fuzzy in OSM: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Abbreviations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Abbreviations (I'm all for everyone using the map style that works the best for them - after all, it's open data and open source.)
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    Using the full names isn't to 'fill the map', it's because the process of going from full name to abbreviation has a lot less ambiguity than going from abbreviation to full name. Seems the search box is tripping on that (not considering places on North 14th Street for a search like N 14th St).
    - tuukkah 3y ago
      The full names will be too much in some cases, and there is no abbreviation algorithm that will work everywhere (OSM is a global project). Similarly, "N 14th St" has no meaning in most of the world. Hence, it's complicated and not "moronic" e.g. to make use of Wikidata for labels and to use external datasets to improve geocoding.
zaik 3y ago
My town has three McDonald's. It only finds one of them and then suggests ones which are hundreds of kilometers away. Organic Maps finds all of them without problem.
jaimex2 3y ago
Doesnt load for me, might be overloaded. I use OSMAnd a lot so keen to see how this works. I suspect it wont support offline maps.
gargsms 3y ago
Too many redirects on the desktop. There are 4 navigation changes just on loading the homepage
marwis 3y ago
This is great but the waves on water are really dumb.
elijahbenizzy 3y ago
This has the same feeling as leaking AI-generated text back to the training data...
tkgally 3y ago
Major place names in Japan are romanized with the Japanese readings, but minor places use Mandarin readings. For example, a nursery school in Yokohama called 野毛山幼稚園, which is read Nogeyama Yōchien, has the label yě máo shān yò zhì yuán [1]. [1] https://osmapp.org/#17.75/35.4485/139.6254 https://osmapp.org/#17.75/35.4485/139.6254
- zbycz 3y ago
  Hi, unfortunately this is caused by Maptiler map tiles prefering Wikidata over OSM. More info here: https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp/issues/221 https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp/issues/221 You can find the "correct" OSM entity here: https://osmapp.org/way/94708772 https://osmapp.org/way/94708772
fatal69100 3y ago
You can also use https://www.qwant.com/maps https://www.qwant.com/maps for OSM base web app (https://github.com/Qwant/qwantmaps https://github.com/Qwant/qwantmaps)
- maelito 3y ago
  It's not developped anymore. The company got bought by the french cloud company OVH. Let's hope they want to make a public and open source map part of their europaen google alternative.
ascorbic 3y ago
It would be nice if it opened on your current location, or at least a map with a button to do that. It's an annoying step to have to search to see a map. Regarding the content, it seems to be missing some useful POIs that are visible in Organic Maps, such as gates and stiles
jasonvorhe 3y ago
Can't install this PWA using Brave on Android.
zbycz 3y ago
Hi - I am the author. OsmAPP is my take on creating a universal OpenStreetMap app for broad public. It should be as easy to use as Google Maps, including clickable POIs and featuring as much of OSM data as possible. I want to educate the user about wikipedia-like experience of OSM, thus edit is possible even for anonymous visitors. It is has still a long way to go ;) - Big thanks to Maptiler which processes raw OSM data and provides the vector tiles. https://www.maptiler.com/ https://www.maptiler.com/ - Geocoding is done by Photon API which allows autocomplete. The main OSM sites uses Nominatim API which can't. https://photon.komoot.io/ https://photon.komoot.io/ Also thank you very much for featuring OsmAPP here, perhaps someone will find it useful. :-)
- marssaxman 3y ago
  Perhaps I am missing something obvious, but... where do you find the actual app? Is it only for iOS?
  - e12e 3y ago
    It appears to be a pwa/web app: https://osmapp.org/install https://osmapp.org/install
  - zbycz 3y ago
    It is a web app - just visit https://osmapp.org https://osmapp.org in mobile or desktop. PWA is experimential feature, it lets you add it on homescreen, but nothing more. It is still online web app. See https://osmapp.org/install https://osmapp.org/install For mobile we have already several great native apps (OrganicMaps, Osmand, Mapy.cz).

200 points by maelito 3y ago

maelito 3y ago

Code is here https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp

csk111165 3y ago

Can we use the APIs like Google map for our own delivery app?

agazso 3y ago

This is excellent, I was looking for an open source replacement for Google Maps on the web for a while. And on the top of it, it is open source! I am heading to github and see if I can contribute.

rijoja 3y ago
Personally I am using [organicmaps](https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/) which is using OpenStreetMap data, and it works really well.
- maelito 3y ago
  Organic Maps has no Web app. Well, they have a very bare Web app, unusable. I wish (for the general public) there was both a Web app, and mobiles apps under the same names and maturity.
  - fatal69100 3y ago
    You can also use https://www.qwant.com/maps https://www.qwant.com/maps as OSM base web app
    - maelito 3y ago
      I wish, but like I said below, it's not developped anymore. The company got bought by the french cloud company OVH. There are multiple complaints of stale OSM data in the github issues. Let's hope they want to make a public and open source map part of their europaen google alternative.
  - rijoja 3y ago
    For a web app I'm fine with using https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/.
- cf100clunk 3y ago
  I'm wondering if you've tried Magic Lane products and can compare? https://www.magiclane.com https://www.magiclane.com
  - bubu-bln 3y ago
    MagicEarth (which seems to be a MagicLane product; https://www.magicearth.com/ https://www.magicearth.com/) is my daily driver navigation app. I prefer it over Google maps for everything routing related. The only thing Google is better at is showing me relevant metainformation about places (when is this restaurant open? What is this doctor's telephone number and website?), and that's the only reason I'm keeping maps on my phone.
  - rijoja 3y ago
    Can't say that I have no, but I would like to try it out given the chance!
- kragen 3y ago
  oh nice, and it's on f-droid too. is it more responsive than the fairly sluggish osmand~?
  - hjek 3y ago
    OrganicMaps is incredibly snappy compared to OsmAnd~.
    - kragen 3y ago
      thanks!
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  maps.me is the most popular app of that kind.
  - rijoja 3y ago
    Never heard about it! Thank you very much! [edit]Apparently organic maps is maps.me without the tracking[/edit]

ksjskskskkk 3y ago

webgl :/

stereo 3y ago
What's wrong with webgl, isn't it supported by the vast majority of browsers and devices?
- maelito 3y ago
  98,5 % https://caniuse.com/?search=webgl https://caniuse.com/?search=webgl Not using Webgl is one of the reasons why openstreetmap.org looks so dated. You can't even click on a point, and it's raster lays.
- ksjskskskkk 3y ago
  it's todays number one attack vector. people who disable js (very few in this early adopter crowd) then allowlist sites to have js but no webgl. it's something better left for games or to increment visuals. basing your ui on it like doing js only sites in 2023

wombat-man 3y ago

Wow, can't find my parents house even with the exact address. Kinda rough but a good start I guess.

xethos 3y ago
That's not a knock against the app, but something you can actually fix - this would use the OSM backend, and adding your parent's address would take all of ten minutes if you care to do so.
- wombat-man 3y ago
  Sure, but if it's to be usable as a replacement for other map apps, that's time that'll add up pretty quickly. It's a nice proof of concept but there's a long ways to go.
  - emj 3y ago
    You are missing the point. If you do this commercially and have that need, you usually have a separate geocoding. This data can not be combined with OSM unless it is already freely available. The point is that the data in OSM is freely useable in what ever way you want to as long as you publish the data used to create your maps. There are no available map data that allow this except Openstreetmap.
- mastazi 3y ago
  This app's search is clearly not the same as the one on openstreetmap.org On openstreetmap.org I found my address with no issues - I typed the address in the search box, and got a pointer on the map showing me where it is. On OsmApp, the same exact query resulted in more than 19,000 results and the app proceeded to highlight them all on the map, which effectively means it's impossible to actually locate the address.
mminer237 3y ago
Most buildings in OSM aren't actually tagged with numbers. (A lot of houses aren't even marked as existing buildings in my experience.) It should be have their street at least, but adding building numbers is just too time-consuming for outside of cities it seems.

Freak_NL 3y ago

As an OpenStreetMap contributor this looks weird. Some names are off from what is recorded in OpenStreetMap. I wonder if… …and sure enough. This app uses one of those moronic map styles which doesn't just use the names for places in the OpenStreetMap database, but also draws them for Wikidata. Great. Those often suck for use on a map, because they tend to include stuff like 'Province X' for a province named 'X', and because the translations stored in Wikidata are often archaic or plain wrong. The argument the developers who use the wikidata IDs stored in many place name objects to draw in 'missing' translations is that this is surely better than just showing the local name, but this completely misses that in OpenStreetMap name data is already really quite accurate, whereas Wikidata… As an OpenStreetMap contributor I am not interested in having to keep two databases up-to-date to get names (exonyms and endonyms) to show up correctly. I know a number of developers are pushing this dumb solution, but it is hurting the project more than it is helping.

tuukkah 3y ago
Map labels are complicated and Wikidata is (in general) a better place than OSM to sort that out on the data level. Consider all the various *name* tags in OSM and how they are (mis-)used to please specific renderers and geocoders. E.g. do you apply (semi-)standard abbreviations of street names or do you write names in full so that they fill the map? It's fuzzy in OSM: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Abbreviations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Abbreviations (I'm all for everyone using the map style that works the best for them - after all, it's open data and open source.)
- maxerickson 3y ago
  Using the full names isn't to 'fill the map', it's because the process of going from full name to abbreviation has a lot less ambiguity than going from abbreviation to full name. Seems the search box is tripping on that (not considering places on North 14th Street for a search like N 14th St).
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    The full names will be too much in some cases, and there is no abbreviation algorithm that will work everywhere (OSM is a global project). Similarly, "N 14th St" has no meaning in most of the world. Hence, it's complicated and not "moronic" e.g. to make use of Wikidata for labels and to use external datasets to improve geocoding.

zaik 3y ago

My town has three McDonald's. It only finds one of them and then suggests ones which are hundreds of kilometers away. Organic Maps finds all of them without problem.

jaimex2 3y ago

Doesnt load for me, might be overloaded. I use OSMAnd a lot so keen to see how this works. I suspect it wont support offline maps.

gargsms 3y ago

Too many redirects on the desktop. There are 4 navigation changes just on loading the homepage

marwis 3y ago

This is great but the waves on water are really dumb.

elijahbenizzy 3y ago

This has the same feeling as leaking AI-generated text back to the training data...

tkgally 3y ago

Major place names in Japan are romanized with the Japanese readings, but minor places use Mandarin readings. For example, a nursery school in Yokohama called 野毛山幼稚園, which is read Nogeyama Yōchien, has the label yě máo shān yò zhì yuán [1]. [1] https://osmapp.org/#17.75/35.4485/139.6254 https://osmapp.org/#17.75/35.4485/139.6254

zbycz 3y ago
Hi, unfortunately this is caused by Maptiler map tiles prefering Wikidata over OSM. More info here: https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp/issues/221 https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp/issues/221 You can find the "correct" OSM entity here: https://osmapp.org/way/94708772 https://osmapp.org/way/94708772

fatal69100 3y ago

You can also use https://www.qwant.com/maps https://www.qwant.com/maps for OSM base web app (https://github.com/Qwant/qwantmaps https://github.com/Qwant/qwantmaps)

maelito 3y ago
It's not developped anymore. The company got bought by the french cloud company OVH. Let's hope they want to make a public and open source map part of their europaen google alternative.

ascorbic 3y ago

It would be nice if it opened on your current location, or at least a map with a button to do that. It's an annoying step to have to search to see a map. Regarding the content, it seems to be missing some useful POIs that are visible in Organic Maps, such as gates and stiles

jasonvorhe 3y ago

Can't install this PWA using Brave on Android.

zbycz 3y ago

Hi - I am the author. OsmAPP is my take on creating a universal OpenStreetMap app for broad public. It should be as easy to use as Google Maps, including clickable POIs and featuring as much of OSM data as possible. I want to educate the user about wikipedia-like experience of OSM, thus edit is possible even for anonymous visitors. It is has still a long way to go ;) - Big thanks to Maptiler which processes raw OSM data and provides the vector tiles. https://www.maptiler.com/ https://www.maptiler.com/ - Geocoding is done by Photon API which allows autocomplete. The main OSM sites uses Nominatim API which can't. https://photon.komoot.io/ https://photon.komoot.io/ Also thank you very much for featuring OsmAPP here, perhaps someone will find it useful. :-)

marssaxman 3y ago
Perhaps I am missing something obvious, but... where do you find the actual app? Is it only for iOS?
- e12e 3y ago
  It appears to be a pwa/web app: https://osmapp.org/install https://osmapp.org/install
- zbycz 3y ago
  It is a web app - just visit https://osmapp.org https://osmapp.org in mobile or desktop. PWA is experimential feature, it lets you add it on homescreen, but nothing more. It is still online web app. See https://osmapp.org/install https://osmapp.org/install For mobile we have already several great native apps (OrganicMaps, Osmand, Mapy.cz).