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The rise of OpenStreetMap: A quest to conquer Google’s mapping empire
- fidotron 13y agoI find myself increasingly leaning towards OpenStreetMap due to the utterly infuriating changes in the Google Maps interfaces, and that's even knowing the GM privacy issues. OSM has definite holes in the data, but that's fixable, yet also suffers from a too much information by default situation for their standard representations. The map data is there, but the resulting maps just aren't quite as good, though I'm sure someone will use it to get there.
- Estragon 13y ago> utterly infuriating changes in the Google Maps interfaces Anyone know what Google's plan is here? I've stopped using Google Maps on my phone for the same reason. Doesn't seem like a win for them.
- colmvp 13y agoStrange, I haven't had a problem using their app on the iPhone.
- maxerickson 13y agoCan you link to a spot you find too busy? (Not for any important reason, just for a more concrete point of reference)
- michaelt 13y agoI'm not the person you're replying to, but if you compare https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/48.2444/16.3255 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/48.2444/16.3255 and https://maps.google.com/maps?q=48.2444,16.3255&z=15 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=48.2444,16.3255&z=15 there's a lot more data shown on the first map. Or compare https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/51.5122/-0.1201 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/51.5122/-0.1201 with https://maps.google.com/maps?q=51.5122,-0.1201&z=16 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=51.5122,-0.1201&z=16 Personally I like maps that have a lot of data on them, but I can see why people might find it a bit overwhelming.
- aw3c2 13y agoOSM is the data. That map is meant for mappers. There are countless other maps based on the data. One of them might be more for you. Try mapquest's or the humanitarian style.
- afterburner 13y agoYes. Google Maps used to make it easy to cache an area and know which areas you'd cached. It was also integrated with My Maps, which I found useful. One of their updates a while back took both of these away without warning. For a fully featured Android map app, with many options for map sources, try Locus.
- unholiness 13y agoThis feature still exists, it's just needlessly hidden as an easter egg in the new version. (http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/10/save-maps-offline-new-google-maps/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/10/save-maps-offline-new-googl...) EDIT: There is also no longer a way to know what areas you have cached.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoI know I hate it too. Use https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic. Google's become so extremely disrespectful, they don't even ask you to opt in. Seems like every time they hire a new designer they re-design either YouTube or Google Maps when they didn't need a single thing changed. - I have the new Google Maps UI forced on me. The slow loading one that's un-intuitive. - I'm no longer allowed to see a "satellite view" of my city. I'm forced to use "3D view" or normal map view. - They removed the underlined text and increased the font in Google Search for me. Making the text harder to read. - Forcing me to use Google+ to comment on YouTube videos. - Redesigning Analytics so it looks like garbage and I can't open multiple sites in new tabs. There's no better time to compete with Google. At this rate they'll piss all their users away.
- ljoshua 13y agoI'm using OSM data in a fun little app I'm building (mapping out the tunnels in downtown Houston, TX) and I've been very impressed by the tooling. Everything from the OSM site and editors themselves, to related tools like MapBox, Leaflet.js, TileMill, etc. There are some very beautiful and functional geo-related products out there, and OSM works amazingly well in all of them.
- jamiek88 13y agoI've been looking for a Houston tunnels app. That would be a very useful app! I love hyper local app ideas. Lots of people have asked me for a good Houston tunnel app as I seem to be the 'tech guy' amongst our circle. iOS or Android? I could help publicise this app and help beta test if you like? I'm iOS only but have access to borrow an android phone if need be. How are you handling movement and position checking with no GPS ping? Wifi location?
- ljoshua 13y agoGlad to know there's interest in it! I'm making it primarily because _I_ need it--not easy to find what you need down there. I was always surprised there wasn't one yet, so I decided to make it as a fun side project. Both iOS and Android. I'd love beta testers, you can get a hold of me through my bio.
- huskyr 13y agoOne thing where OSM really shines is the ability to downloaded maps for offline use. When i was travelling in South East Asia for two months i had an iPhone with an app that allowed me to download a part of any OSM map. Because every hotel had Wi-Fi access i just downloaded the parts where i was travelling and used that instead of finding a local SIM card. Even in pretty remote parts the maps were usually good, and in some cases they were even better than the Google Maps equivalent (e.g. Laos).
- nolok 13y agoFYI on android's Google Maps I've been able to do that for at least a year and a half, and it works great for me (I used it extensively in SEA too, coincidentally). Not sure if it's available on iOS's version.
- 4ad 13y agoIt's incomparable. Google Maps only caches around 10km x 10km, and in offline mode search and routing doesn't work. Also, in Google Maps it's impossible to tell if/what is cached and what not. OSM maps can be for any area, and applications do provide search, including POI search and routing.
- XorNot 13y agoI like to keep a complete world map on my phone, since the only time I'm ever going to need it, is very likely to be the most important time (i.e. possibly life or death).
- rmc 13y ago"Complete"? How complete? The OSM dump is about 33GB compressed...
- nswanberg 13y agoIt's over 400GB uncompressed, so currently this person would have to settle for a subset on a 128GB MicroSD like http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IIJ6W4S/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IIJ6W4S/. I think there are larger SD cards. And certainly there are small 1TB hard disks. I'm not sure what sort of device would be best for carrying around the world viewing these things, but probably what this person wants is possible, if expensive and inconvenient.
- eevilspock 13y agoI hope this movement toward community owned not-for-profit internet utilities is a trend, not just mapping but also for search and social networking. These functions are so key to the user and give so much power to whoever operates them they belong in the hands of the community. There is too much conflict of interest when in the hands of Google, Apple, Facebook or the like.
- rmc 13y agoFYI Openstreetmap started a few months before Google maps was released.
- ancarda 13y agoCan anybody recommend a good OSM-based maps app for iOS? Currently I'm using Apple maps as it offers a great user experience. It's extremely fast, fluid and has turn-by-turn directions. Unfortunately the data is sub-par for my area. I've tried Google Maps' latest version and it feels laggy; When I zoom in it seems to jump to an image at the end of the animation. Nobody is getting vector maps right except for Apple. I wish it could just use OSM for the data. Bonus points if the app can download maps.
- aw3c2 13y agoTry http://mapswith.me/ http://mapswith.me/
- ancarda 13y agoI downloaded some maps but panning / zooming results in the map flashing while it's displaying the next tile. As I said, I use Apple maps because it has a great user experience. This has the same issue Google maps has.
- kevinbowman 13y agoI also use MapsWithMe; if I'm not mistaken, it downloads the vector data offline and then renders it on the fly incredibly quickly. Impressive stuff.
- zeckalpha 13y agoAlso, is there a good app for contributing to OSM?
- uname-r 13y agoI can recommend the Galileo app. Apart from its icon it is very nice and behaves like the (old) Google Maps app. http://galileo-app.com/ http://galileo-app.com/
- stugrey 13y agoFor those looking to get hacking quickly on the osm data I would highly recommend osm2pgsql http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql It sets up and imports OSM data into a postGIS-enabled PostgreSQL database. From there you can use TileMill to create whatever type of map you fancy or just access the raw data.
- 4ad 13y agoFWIW, where I live and where I travel OSM maps are much better than Google Maps. Google Maps just lack the data. OSM: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/48.2509/16.2533 http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/48.2509/16.2533 Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=48.256541,+16.269420&aq=&sll=48.256641,16.269164&sspn=0.00705,0.009634&vpsrc=6&ie=UTF8&ll=48.25717,16.264787&spn=0.014101,0.019269&t=m&z=16&iwloc=A https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q...
- CaptainSwing 13y agoThis is interesting. Do you have any ideas why? Did google simply deem it not profitable enough to send their camera-vans round bratislava, or are there particular reasons that make it more expensive there (regulations of some kind, a fuck-tonne of bureaucracy to get permission?)
- davidw 13y agoBratislava? Clicking on his link, I get something that looks like a suburb of Vienna.
- rmc 13y agoWelcome to "Not-the-USA". You may find the big US tech companies don't care nearly as much about here.
- oscargrouch 13y agoIt's the modern version of the Roman/Barbarian dichotomy
- sirkneeland 13y agoEvidently you've never been to China then...
- cromwellian 13y agoEver notice why you don't see Street View in China, or some Euro-areas? Some of it is probably regulation. Apple was recently denied overflight rights on some areas in Germany IIRC to do 3D mapping.
- FigBug 13y agoDoes anybody know of open source vector rendering engine for OSM that I could incorporate into an iOS app? I'd like to get away from using tiles.
- Doctor_Fegg 13y agoTry https://github.com/beelsebob/OpenStreetPad https://github.com/beelsebob/OpenStreetPad. It's abandonware (the author got hired) but functional as it is.
- saosebastiao 13y agoCant google use OSM data? It looks like the license is pretty liberal.
- pja 13y agoIf Google used the OSM data, they'd risk being forced to share their mapping data - OSM is distributed under a share and share-a-like style license. There are probably ways around it, but Google regards their map data as being core to their business & they've spent $billions on it. There's no way they're going to risk that. Apple is using OSM data from before the change to the new licence if theirs is from 2010. Google could do the same, but what would be the point?
- rmc 13y agoIt's not "a risk". If they use OSM, they must release their map data they mix it with too.
- lettergram 13y agoThis seems to me to be something of a hipster argument. I use Google Maps (1) because it is usually better than the competition, (2) it usually integrates well with everything I have, and (3) Doesn't show me a bunch of useless information (such as walking paths). Basically, Google Maps works better than OpenStreetMap from what I've seen (I tried using OSM, but it was hard to tell what things were being clustered and what not).
- maxerickson 13y agoWhat does "hipster argument" mean? I'm surprised at how quickly people advocating for OSM make the comparisons to Google maps. The user facing stuff at openstreetmap.org isn't comparable to maps.google.com or the various Google apps. But OpenStreetMap isn't just the tiles you see at osm.org, it is a data product that you can adapt to whatever you need, for the simple price of attribution. And while the data is not complete, the global coverage is increasingly reasonable.
- Vik1ng 13y agoI think the reason Google maps works so great now is why a lot of people support OpenStreetMap. They simply don't want a private company to have some kind of almost monopoly on good online maps, which then can dictate the rules how it is used.
- zmanian 13y agoI saw a Bing street view car recently in SF Bay Area. It was the weirdest thing.
- officer_gotcha 13y agoI've been using OSM for ages on Android for navigation and I'm very happy about it. What it really needs is an easy way to be used as a maps replacement. Something akin the openpdroid patch, but for the maps layer. I'd donate/contribute, but I don't have the time to do it myself.
- beering 13y agoOne thing us hackers should be especially aware of is that it is a violation of the free Google Maps API terms of service to embed Google Maps in anything that makes money. Read that again. If you make a classifieds website but charge businesses to list, it's a violation of the free Maps API TOS and you need to purchase an Enterprise license. Enterprise licenses start at 5 figures/annum for low-volume usage. This is not some abstract ideological nitpick. Google has ramped up its attempts to monetize Maps ever since they introduced quotas a couple years back, and they are actively pursuing businesses to force them to buy an Enterprise license. So there is a very real risk that you could be targeted if you embed Google Maps, especially if your website gets big. This is no doubt one reason why companies like Foursquare, Craigslist, etc. use OpenStreetMap rather than Google Maps.
- redstripe 13y agoThat's not how I read it. It looks like you can make money just not by charging for maps API. i.e. your maps implementation should be in your free SKU. "10.1.2 Restrictions against Commercial Use. (a) No Fees. You must not charge users or any other third party any fee for the use of the Maps API Implementation, the Service, or the Content, except as permitted under Section 9.1.2" https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#section_10_1 https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#section_10_1
- mslider 13y agoHad to make an account and comment - my friend went through this whole thing and the terms of service get pretty fuzzy pretty quickly. For his listings website that charged business owners fees for "premium" listings, Google[0] considered the embedded Maps to be part of what he was selling. They argued that the service as a whole (incl. maps) was "the product". We disagree, apparently, but our interpretation doesn't mean diddly squat until push comes to shove. [0] Edit: by "Google", I mean whatever sales drone is trying to get you to pay. I assume their salespeople are on commission like any other company.
- barclay 13y ago
- clarry 13y agoNow if there was a well performing map editor & viewer for the desktop, and without crazy deps..
- Vik1ng 13y agoWhat are you missing? I always just used the one in the browser and that did most things just fine. Just recently used JOSM which of course has some advantages, but the basics seems to work everywhere.
- clarry 13y agoPerformance. Both are unusably slow, and eat a ton of RAM (oom quick).
- maxerickson 13y agoHow often do you check back on Josm? I might just be more patient than you, but I spend more time waiting for imagery to come in from servers than I spend waiting for Josm (on a 5+ year old laptop with 2 GB or ram...).
- clarry 13y agoA 5+ year old laptop could be an order of magnitude faster than a 4+ year old netbook (Atom N450!) with 1G of RAM. I've tried josm a few times, it's completely unusable.
- maxerickson 13y agoYeah, I was just trying to establish something like 'modest hardware works well enough for me'. I think Josm wouldn't work very well with any less ram (swap is an occasional pain point). Do you think the style of interface presented by iD is more in the right direction? I don't mean the in-browser stuff, I mean the more simplified editing model and such.
- danpalmer 13y agoGoogle Maps is a great product. OpenStreetMap is a great dataset. Google clearly know how to make their data support features they want in apps. They have been known to use computer vision techniques to read street signs in order to work out the logic of junctions, just so that they can do better route finding. OpenStreetMap on the other hand focuses on just having a huge amount of data. Their online editing is much more discoverable, and as a result their data is often better. There's someone at my university who has an interest in it, and consequently, the main campus is modelled perfectly down to the level of individual trees being correctly placed.
- gjkood 13y agoJust recently evaluated Google Maps, MapQuest, OpenStreetMaps, MapBox for a client project. I tried to locate a home address among a tract of addresses in a busy part of Northern Virginia. Only Google Maps and MapQuest could map the address. As long as there isn't some sort of comprehensive address data for valid US addresses, I would hesitate to use it or recommend it for any business applications. I understand OpenStreetMap is crowdsourced but there are commercial vendors such as MapBox that rely on that data. I couldn't use those resellers either unless they had other sources of address data.
- Trufa 13y agoHi, I'm working on an application that need to do Geocoding, and it's a problem that's definitely not solved. We've tried countless solutions but hadn't found any satisfying one until now. We cannot (and will not) use Google's geocoder becuse we wont put the information on a google map (part of their TOS). We recently tried decarta and seems to be working really really good! http://decarta.com/ http://decarta.com/ Unfortunately some house numbers are missing, but still, the quality is pretty high! (I dont have any affiliation with them, we're just a customer now.) Also, I would like to bash yahoo placefinder! It's realatively decent in finding addresses, but, but, but! The pricing is very high, the documentation ludicrous, customer service/forums nonexistent and you'll get terrible uptime, from now once a day or two, you'll just get mysterious 503 for which the official answer seems to be wait for a while, and hopefully it will fix itself, Just effing great!
- gjkood 13y agoWe are leaning towards MapQuest because their pricing was much better than Google Maps for the kind of volume that our client was looking at. We had to go with the business license approach because of the TOS involved. BTW, MapQuest does have a "Community License" which unfortunately for us was using data from OpenStreetMaps and not the data behind its commercial product.
- goldfndr 13y agoIf you can find the address at http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/ http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/ then you might give https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/12150/missing-house-numbers-in-local-nominatim-instance https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/12150/missing-house... a look.
- agumonkey 13y agoI wonder if there's a way to crowdsource picture data to reconstruct satellite view, which is missing from OSM.
- hnha 13y agoit is not missing from osm. osm is about vector data. you probably mean it is missing on openstreetmap.org, the project's homepage. I disagree! The website does not do a great job communicating osm's purpose. Any company could setup their own osm-based map and include a layer with aerial images (which they would need to buy).
- agumonkey 13y agoNot buying satellite images was the point of my question. To follow the OSM crowdsourcing model, we'd need some way to gather ~street level pictures and reconstruct[1] vertical views, limited of course, no roofs etc, but better than nothing. [1] think microsoft research project : Photosynth
- toomuchtodo 13y agoYou wouldn't have enough images to generate anywhere near the data that Google, Bing, Yahoo has. This may change if amateur automated drone imaging takes off. Now what could be done is crowdfunding an imaging run by a satellite imaging company, and licensing the data under an open license.
- agumonkey 13y agoFor isolated or risky areas I agree, nothing can replace high altitude views. But for lively places ... are you sure ? millions of cellphones, a few snapshots with geoloc and orientation, that amount to a lot of data. I wish for drone imaging too, but automated cars aren't legal, and I think drones won't be for even longer (unless Amazon unlesh some nice lobby-fu). About crowdfunding satellite licensing.. I just remember a lot of people are sending high altitude balloons, maybe that would be a cheap middle ground.
- jokoon 13y agoI still wonder how do you really make sure there is no spam and data vandalizing in OSM. I still wonder about it, since there can be some entities that would just erase competition for a price, but I guess that's the same way wikipedia is dealing with it.
- josteink 13y agoThis is badly needed. Mapping is one of those areas where I still have to rely on Google, even though I really try to exit their services. The internet needs more of its core services being based on open services and open data. Last time I tried OSM, I had a very bad experience, but looking at Locus (as recommended elsewhere in this thread) things are definitely looking better.
- Vik1ng 13y agoConsider contributing yourself. If everybody would just add his house with his address and make sure the street is there and maybe some houses around you that would already help a lot.
- alatkins 13y agoOSM has long been the best option for mountain biking and hiking trails. Glad to see it getting noticed and hopefully this leads to even better maps!
- acabal 13y agoGoogle Maps' killer feature for me is getting directions for public transport. Finding out how to get from point A to point B using buses and subways is invaluable. It doesn't seem like any Android OSM client has that yet... too bad. I would much rather use OSM.
- milliams 13y agoI had already posted this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7318970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7318970
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI hope they are successful, especially with the most recent update to Google Maps which is pretty poor in my opinion. That said, its extremely difficult to do really good maps over a wide area. Having seen, from the inside, some of the stuff Google went through to get the 'truth' about what is on the ground, and continues to do, its quite an intense undertaking.
- scoofy 13y agoCan someone please direct me to an OSM bicycle map that isn't hideous looking? I've looked and i can't find one.
- maxerickson 13y agoWhat do you think of http://hikebikemap.de/ http://hikebikemap.de/ ? The tile rendering seems a bit slow, but it isn't super visually busy.
- scoofy 13y agoUnfortunately, when you zoom in on the cycle map, it's still a bunch of giant blue highlighter blobs where bikepaths are.
- maxerickson 13y agoLike this? http://hikebikemap.de/?zoom=14&lat=41.84557&lon=-72.00125&layers=B0000TFFFF http://hikebikemap.de/?zoom=14&lat=41.84557&lon=-72.00125&la... I wouldn't call that giant. It does take a moment for the higher zoom to render in, so the blurry lower zoom is there. edit:(Not sure my tone will come across well, I don't mean to split hairs, I just see a relatively thin line for the trail)
- scoofy 13y agoI'm looking at san francisco, apparently germany looks nicer for some reason.
- fernly 13y agoThe search function is not impressive. I put in the address of a hotel that I know exists (I have a reservation): "Finnegårdsgaten 2A, 2003 Bergen, Norway". It says "no results found". In the map window I have the OSM map of Bergen displayed with Finnegårdsgaten in the center (not as the result of the search) so I know the street is in the data. Open GMaps, enter the same address, it instantly displays it plus on the left, a Street View of the building front, and links for three crucially useful things that OSM doesn't appear to have: Directions, Search nearby, and Save to [my] maps. I use all three of these features heavily when planning a trip. Bottom line: they may have the map data (the Bergen data looks pretty much the same, modulo the different graphic styles) but they lack a lot in the features built on it.
- elchief 13y agoDear female techs. This is a golden opportunity to make your mark on a green-field project that is about to blow up.
- enscr 13y agoSo what's the best 'free' app for Android & iOS that leverages OSM. I'd switch in a heartbeat.