There's nothing wrong with OSM but you can't pretend it is on the same level as Google Maps. Where is streetview? Business opening times? Reviews? Phone numbers? Directions? Turn-by-turn navigation? Live traffic? Historical traffic?

Google Maps now has a live busynessometer for some businesses. And 3D models of entire cities, even non-London ones.

As a traditional paper map OSM is fine, but Google Maps is now far more than that.

> Where is streetview? Business opening times? Reviews? Phone numbers? Directions? Turn-by-turn navigation? Live traffic? Historical traffic?

Traffic and street view are hard, and expensive, to do because you need to drive around the place to take photos, or to have enough data points for traffic information.

Reviews are hard because they are subjective, and how do you deal with spam, with moderation, with fake reviews, etc.

The other things? They're in OSM (to varing degrees of completness):

* Business opening times: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours * Phone Numbers: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:phone * Simple 3d modelling: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/3D * Directions/turn-by-turn has existed for a long time, e.g. on the main website itself, or software like Graphhopper or OSRM.

Yes OSM is has much less features than Google, but the OSM Foundation only has income of about £97,000 per year. Google has considerible more financial strength.

You are completely missing the point. This is not a critic of the OSM project. Most of the commenters love that it exists. It's just that if you click on your mobile on google map and osm map, you get a vastly different experience. It's objective.

Yes, you're right, they are different things. I'm just pointing out that OSM isn't as bad for some of the things you mentioned.

(BTW there isn't one osm map app for mobile devices)

> Where is streetview?

Far from perfect, but it exists: http://openstreetcam.org/map/

Open street map don't tell you to go to the left ride of the lane so you can take a better right turn in 100m in real time, then inform you that you have to alternatives to your current trip given the current traffic spike if you wish.

By itself, OSM is just a geo database so it's somewhat misleading to state "what it doesn't tells you".

In fact, OSM is perfectly capable of representing lane restrictions (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lanes) and some of the existing OSM clients (such as OsmAnd) offer 'lane assist' (arguably, it might not be as good as Google's but there's no fundamental problem in achieving feature parity).

And while the GMaps feature of offering you route alternatives based on the current traffic is nice, the "price" you are paying for it is unconditionally sharing your location with google while the GMaps app is running (or even at all times, depending on you settings). I personally don't feel comfortable with that compromise.

> there's no fundamental problem in achieving feature parity

Sure, but if you're going to make that argument, all software is equivalent, because you can just implement the stuff you want and delete the stuff that gets in the way.

This is not entirely true for proprietary software :)

We can do it != we have it.

If there is a choice between having to watch annoying ads and not having those details, then I go for the more basic system that is ad free. (I do use openstreetmap for 99% for my navigation, mostly because I care about open navigation systems)

No doubt, real time traffic information can be developed for openstreetmap. But if and when it happens depends on where others drop the ball.

For example, current navigation systems built into cars tend to be completely out of date and mostly unsupported long before the car itself is end of life. So this is an area where openstreetmap might take over.

OSM actually had ads way before Google Maps: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappam

I don't think you can compare the ad tracking that Google does now, and what the OSM website used to do years ago. That wiki page is almost 10 years old, with the website mentioned (mappam.com) no longer working.

Though since OSM predates Google Maps, it makes sense that OSM would have another first :P

You are on HN. You are not a basic consumer. Selective bias at his best.

After being driven through very convoluted paths a bunch of times in the name of saving time and realtime updates, I'd say I very much prefer the consistent sane paths created by months old openstreet maps on my SD card (using mapfactor Navigator)

Almost useless outside a few cities in a few western countries.

The first time I tried OSM there were only a couple of roads in place of nearby towns, tried again a couple of years later and everything was there, even more detailed than google's maps

So it can definitely change.