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Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by jaryd on Monday February 03, 2014 @09:39AM (#7170796)
Does anyone use OpenStreetMap on Android with any success? I'd be grateful to hear of any maps/directions apps that I can use as a replacement in this category.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by Trufa on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:57AM (#7171267)
I work at BikeCityGuide, we make a Navigation System specialized for bikes.

We are based on OSM, and while not perfect, we are pretty satisfied with it. If you want to give it a try to see how it looks, you can see it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.bikecitygu... (you can test it for free and if anyone is interested in coupons let me know)

One of the main advantages for us is that we made an in-house routing algorithm so routing is done on your phone, that means that you don't need an internet connection while routing, but for that we need to download the maps, of course this is not possible with proprietary maps like Google Maps.

At the moment we're only in Europe and the map quality has been pretty good. We're are having some problems with some cities, like Madrid with the direction of the streets, but you know what's awesome, that when we get a mail from a customer telling us that this and that is wrong, we can reply them in a couple of hours telling them that the issue was fixed and it will be deployed in update.

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by stakent on Monday February 03, 2014 @09:59AM (#7170910)
I've downvoted you by mistake. Sorry.

I do use Navit [1] offline navigation which I belive uses offline maps based on OpenStreetMap. GUI is a bit quirky, but it works. Offline maps are downloaded from the application. I use simply snapshots apks from Navit's download page [2].

I've encoutered some bugs in the maps for new build roads. New means few weeks, but it otherwise works very good. It can be used as car navigation because energy consumption is rather fast so connecting to a car charger is a must.

[1] http://www.navit-project.org/ [2] http://download.navit-project.org/navit/android/svn/

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by rakoo on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:21AM (#7171028)
I personnaly use OSMAnd, but the UI can be... demanding.

Another app that has been praised by a lot of people is CityMaps2go [0], both on Android and iOs. While the application is not open-source (which is why I don't use it), the underlying data comes from OSM, so by using this application you're fighting for OSM.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ulmon.andr...

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by mverwijs on Monday February 03, 2014 @04:49PM (#7173749)
+1 on OSMAnd.

Indeed, the navigation works great IF you can remember how to work the UI. Never the less, I'm still in awe as how well accurate OSM is (in the Netherlands + Belgium).

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by karl42 on Monday February 03, 2014 @09:46AM (#7170825)
I'm using http://osmand.net/

The UI is not perfect, but it has lots of useful features, like bike navigation and offline usage.

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by justincormack on Monday February 03, 2014 @09:53AM (#7170863)
The UI is horrendous! I would use OSM but it is so terrible I can't. I use it when I dont want to go online, but it is truly awful.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by okasaki on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:22AM (#7171032)
"Horrendous!" "truly awful"? Can you elaborate on what exactly is wrong with OsmAnd's UI to elicit such a strong reaction? I use it myself and don't have any problems with it. It seems about the same as any mobile app with comparable complexity.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by justincormack on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:40AM (#7171138)
To search you press the menu, select search, select search by name (not the top item), get a box called "filter" with an almost invisible search button and where enter does not do a search. If it doesn't find any matches it just leaves a blank screen as if nothing has happened. Oh and if you pressed return first it wont find anything as the carriage return is part of the query so it doesn't match.

When I finally get the results of my query for "Hammersmith" it tells me that 309km away (some mistake, more like 3.9km) there is "Subway Station District Line;Hammersmith & City Line", and then the same result repeated around 150 times some with slightly different naming, and at varying distances from 309-328km away before it gets to other results in Hammersmith.

And you are trying to use this on a phone in the rain, you just give up and go back to google maps even though the data is worse.

EDIT: And if you select one of these it appears to be in Barking, as it found every station on the Hammersmith and City Line, although that is not 300km long.

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by okasaki on Monday February 03, 2014 @11:37AM (#7171587)
Granted, I've never used it in a hurry. Also, my previous experience with maps was Garmin's City Navigator, which I thought was okay, but it was much worse than OsmAnd. I actually still use have it as a backup because it can run continuously for two days on two AA batteries.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by the_french on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:57AM (#7171266)
The problem is expectations. When I pull up my map application, I want to find a position on it, usually navigate to it, and do so quickly. Having to navigate menus containing way too many unnecessary options slows me down and discourages most people from using it when gMaps has a simpler interface. Additionally, the maps seem very cluttered with useless information (for immediate navigation). Perhaps the best option would be to get rid of some of the features, since more features != better application. In the end though complexity isn't an excuse for a difficult interface.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by rlpb on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:24AM (#7171041)
> The UI is horrendous!

I'm not sure how it could remain as featureful as it is and improve the UI. So I'm quite happy with it.

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by dochtman on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:21AM (#7171026)
I tried to install it (from the Play Store), but for some inexplicable reason the install hangs on my N4.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by milliams on Monday February 03, 2014 @09:46AM (#7170824)
http://mapswith.me has become very popular recently. I haven't used it much myself so I can give you a proper comparison. Otherwise, OsmAnd is open source and can be found in the F-Droid repository.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by jaryd on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:09AM (#7170964)
I'm giving mapswithme a try right now. I love that I can download all of the maps that are relevant to me, and then use it without an internet connection.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by yummysoup on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:49AM (#7171200)
Because its maps are offline, I've used it on a plane to track flight progress
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by dagw on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:29AM (#7171068)
I use osmand and it works, but the UI is far behind Google maps. Truth be told Osmand is a fall back for when gmap fails rather than a first stop.

The number one huge win for Osmand is offline searching for points of interest. Being able to to pull up a list of all playgrounds close to where I am right now is invaluable when traveling with a hyperactive 3 year old.

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by fnordfnordfnord on Monday February 03, 2014 @11:07AM (#7171354)
No, though I would very much like to. Fairly often I drive in areas where good cellular coverage and good map coverage are spotty or even completely absent. I would love an easy to use app that I could run that would allow me to upload data. I also like OSM for the freely-downloadable-ness. Driving in dark (no data) areas I want to download in advance whatever map data is available; and Google makes that much more painful than it need be.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by ZeroGravitas on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:50AM (#7171204)
It's not a generic "Google Maps" replacement but CycleStreets is a UK-based, cycle-routing/maps app that draws from OpenStreetMap for their map data.

I'm guessing there's a bunch of other niche apps, that do the same kind of thing (e.g. I'm vaguely aware of Wheelmap for wheelchair users).

Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by rwmj on Monday February 03, 2014 @01:24PM (#7172491)
Yes, I use OSMAnd+ (the paid for version of the free OSMAnd app). Search sucks, but I routinely use it as a replacement for Google Maps and the quality of OpenStreetMap itself is just brilliant. Also being able to download whole countries and use it completely offline.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by eli on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:01AM (#7170915)
I use MapDroyd when I travel internationally because it downloads whole countries for offline use. The interface leaves a bit to be desired though.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by FlyingSnake on Monday February 03, 2014 @11:37AM (#7171589)
komoot (http://en.komoot.de/) is quite popular in Germany.
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by bad_user on Monday February 03, 2014 @02:44PM (#7172957)
I've been using the app created by Skobbler, mentioned in the article: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skobbler.f...
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by Piskvorrr on Monday February 03, 2014 @10:16AM (#7171001)
Locus Pro + vector maps as offline maps. Not using anything at all for navigation, so I can't help you there :(
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by asciimo on Monday February 03, 2014 @01:27PM (#7172505)
Are there any Android or iOS apps that allow the user to submit corrections to the OSM database?
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by chrismorgan on Monday February 03, 2014 @05:08PM (#7173868)
OSMAnd does. (I'm not sure precisely how it works or whether it works when you're offline, but it allows you to "report a bug".)
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by helicoidal on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @03:56PM (#7186741)
Edits are stored localy on your phone/tablet, and sent to osm (along with GPS traces you could have recorded) when you manually hit "send data" while a connection is available
Re:It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map by asciimo on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @04:22PM (#7186895)
Thank you. Contributing to OSM will be much more gratifying than contributing to Google via Ingress was.