[HN Gopher] Why Openstreetmap's product fails to compete with Go... ___________________________________________________________________ Why Openstreetmap's product fails to compete with Google Maps Author : liotier Score : 121 points Date : 2021-01-02 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (bedogged.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (bedogged.substack.com) | deanclatworthy wrote: | I'm surprised nobody has mentioned tiles here. In order for | anyone to build products around OSM data you're probably going to | want to render a map. Tile hosting services are costly and I have | up last time I tried to find out how you could do it yourself. | lukeqsee wrote: | > Tile hosting services are costly and I have up last time I | tried to find out how you could do it yourself. | | Blatant self-promotion: my company (https://stadiamaps.com) is | trying to fix this problem (I think we have in many ways). I | strongly believe you shouldn't have to stand up your own tile | hosting infra just to deploy a map without paying $$$ / month. | If you want to though, do it! It'll teach you a lot. | sam_lowry_ wrote: | Do not try installing Maps.me now. It's been sold twice and | current owners kept only the name, replacing the original code | with a Mapbox demo app. | | AFAIK, the spiritual successor to Maps.me is Guru Maps. | | But if you can live with the complexity of OsmAnd UI, just get it | from F-Droid to avoid the 5-maps limit imposed by the Google Play | version. | ce4 wrote: | Discussion from 11d ago: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004 | chippy wrote: | OSM does not fail as a product because it is not trying to be a | product and it is not trying to compete! | | From his twitter it appears that the author is a Facebook | employee. Now working (I guess) on Facebook Maps and (probably) | on the Mapillary product. The somewhat surprising fact to many is | that OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook. If Facebook | disappeared, OSM would continue. Think about that again, OSM does | not need the participation of any large corporate body to | continue. The editors of OpenStreetMap welcome big corporate | users of the database but they don't actually seek out or need | huge corporate users. Don't get me wrong - OSM editors love that | Facebook and Apple use and contribute, there's lots of reasons to | praise this. It's like a wikipedia editor who hears that teachers | are using their articles in all the nations schools - they are | honoured and welcome it, but if the teachers stopped one day the | wikipedia editor would still keep on writing those articles! | | So, OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook or Apple. OpenStreetMap | does not need to compete or be a product. Seems to me that I | would view that as a big risk for Apple and Facebook. So, lets | imagine how two of the FAANG could protect their investments and | reduce risks. Would the changes that OpenStreetMap would need to | make to be a product and to compete with Google Maps reduce such | risk? | | It seems to me that there might possibly be a push from the FAANG | users of OSM to make it into a product, to grow, to be a tech | organisation with actual employees, a CEO, a structure, an | organisation that is familiar to many in tech and their lawyers, | a business one can do business with, create contracts with, make | NDAs to, employee people in, write deals with, have a say in the | direction of and invest actual money in. Currently there is none | of that and I think that might be worrying to FAANG. | | Even if there's no conscious push from these huge corporations | its more probable and it makes more sense to someone with a | Silicon Valley mindset that any tech organisation look, behave, | and be organised as every other successful tech organisation. | It's therefore logical from multiple directions to want OSM to | change to become a product company. I would argue that OSM is | successful exactly because it is not like a tech organisation. | rawland wrote: | It's not a product. Click bait. | lukeqsee wrote: | OSM needn't compete with Google Maps (as a consumer application) | directly; it doesn't, really. | | Lots of apps _based_ on OSM data do need to compete, and that is | very difficult to do on a global-scale. That 's why most | successful OSM-based consumer applications serve a few niches | incredibly well. This is not counting the dozens of companies | offering OSM-based base maps for use in other, mostly non-map- | related uses (such as a store locator or data visualization | tool). | | OSM has the advantage of time, no need to make money, and a | vibrant community around it. Google has to make money directly or | indirectly via Google Maps to justify continued investment; OSM | simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the | data will become. As the ecosystem around OSM improves (and | continues building positive feedback loops), I strongly suspect | we will see a successful consumer-targeted app using OSM data, | and it will be much better than the many (good) apps right now, | simply because another 5-10 years of accumulated data | improvements outstrip the competition's willingness to continue | investing. | | Caveat: I cofounded an OSM base map provider. I'm biased. :-) | otabdeveloper4 wrote: | Maps.me is OSM under the hood, and it's very popular and far | ahead of the Google offering on features and completeness. | TulliusCicero wrote: | Open source software is often comparable or even superior to | the proprietary sort in feature set, the kind of thing you | can list in bullet points. But it tends to fall down when it | comes to user experience. | | I remember attempting to use OSM on my phone before, and I | remember being similarly confused about "which app should I | use?" and the ones I tried just being fairly clunky. But I'll | give maps.me a try, I can't remember if that was one of them. | mixedCase wrote: | OsmAnd~ (F-Droid build) has been serving me well for the | past 5 years or so and it's gotten a lot of love over time | in the UI/UX side. | CameronNemo wrote: | Unfortunately OsmAnd misses a tremendous quantity of | addresses from where I live. | paulryanrogers wrote: | Is the tilde part of the name? | asddubs wrote: | Yes, and it's only on F-Droid. Apparently there's OsmAnd | and OsmAnd+, and the one with the tilde is basically the | + version with no dependencies on google services. At | least according to german wikipedia, which had a | convenient little table | maxerickson wrote: | This can be a tumultuous time to try maps.me. It recently | got a new owner that decided to use it as a distribution | channel for their digital wallet. I'm not sure where it | stands right now, but at one point they had thrown away the | previous app nearly entirely. | matthberg wrote: | For more context check out [0], which had a major | discussion when it was posted. In short, the source code | of Maps.me is open source and people are working on | building from that, yet the Maps.me you find in the play | store isn't the same as the one so many people recommend. | | 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004 | creato wrote: | This kind of garbage is why open source software can't | compete with the likes of Google. I started out reading | this comment chain thinking "great, I'm going to try | maps.me". 10 seconds later, I've learned I can't just try | it, I have to find the right fork, of which I see | several, each with people mentioning serious caveats. And | who knows when the currently best fork will get taken | over by the next wallet software huckster? | ce4 wrote: | Maps.me was recently sold and got a lot of negative press for | their latest changes (becoming more GMaps like, hiding detail | etc). Discussion from 11d ago: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004 | blinding-streak wrote: | Citation needed. | lukeqsee wrote: | Agreed. | | It just has a cluttered and sometimes confusing interface (in | my experience) which makes it difficult for me to intuitively | use it for routing especially. So I typically use Apple Maps | for routing--because it just works and is easy. | patrickk wrote: | HERE Maps (called 'Here WeGo' on the App Store) is usually | better than Google maps for me in a car, at least in Europe. | It's owned by the German car industry and used to be Nokia | maps. | foepys wrote: | Some local public transportation "companies" in Germany (which | are called "Anstalt des offentlichen Rechts" - literal | translation "entity of public law" - and are more or less non- | profit businesses funded by the city) are using OSM data for | their apps and websites and they often edit the bus/tram/train | routes and stops if they change them. This is where OSM shines: | public entities keeping their data up to date for the benefit | of all. | izacus wrote: | Is that really so much different than those same companies | pushing their timetable feeds directly to Google for display | in GMaps? | | Where does OSM provide value here and how can it beat GMaps | in mindshare and keep suriving? | rakoo wrote: | It's not just about market share. In both cases there is an | intermediary between the (public) service provider and the | users, which is the public. In one case the intermediary is | a private entity that answers to no one; in the other case | the data belongs to all of us. If you go beyond a | mercantile view, it's easy which one is the best for the | public in the long term. | Retric wrote: | It's simply more efficient to update OSM, which makes OSM | more up to date. | | Google maps pulled data from OSM so the government had | ~zero incentives to publish to GMaps and every other | mapping service directly. It's simply more work without | benefit. | | PS: If I remember correct Google was on a 2 week delay for | OSM data at the time, but that wasn't considered | meaningful. Also, what's with all the hate here? | foepys wrote: | I can pull, analyze, and use the data I paid for with my | taxes instead of having to beg Google or any other company | for access to the data. | croes wrote: | OSM is non-profit, Google is not. Google tracks the users, | OSM does not. | zelphirkalt wrote: | Although recently they started enabling another spy to | spy on their users, when they decided to rely on fastly. | paulryanrogers wrote: | My guess is the license is the key differentiator. | liotier wrote: | Openstreetmap is not an end-user oriented product - but it is | perceived through such products. Understanding what might make | it more useful to developers benefits from competitive analysis | of the consumer products. | robertlagrant wrote: | It's likely it will never compete. Either its data will never | get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might | switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make | loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of | Chromium. | ghaff wrote: | In _some_ ways, I 'd argue it is better today. I find using | an OSM-based app is far more likely to show trails than | Google Maps is. (Probably because Google 1.) Doesn't really | care and 2.) Official data for trails is pretty fragmentary.) | lukeqsee wrote: | Shoutout to MapOut on iOS! An excellent outdoor map | implementation (including fully offline), and I use it all | the time. | spratzt wrote: | Why does Mapout need to use your location even when it | isn't open? | ghaff wrote: | I will take a look! I'm still using maps.me. | | ADDED: Very nicely done. Just bought it. | lukeqsee wrote: | > Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it | will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for | Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that | way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium. | | Sure, that's reasonable, too. I think OSM (the project & | database) wins in that situation, even if its derivations | don't compete. | | Again, I don't really see OSM directly competing with Google | Maps (the app). | bradbeattie wrote: | > OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better | the data will become. | | Probably, but not necessarily. The world changes with time and | if OSM contributions languish, it falls out of date with the | world and tangibly becomes a worse product. Certainly not | inevitable, but a possibility worth noting. | quietbritishjim wrote: | Agreed. In fact, I think the OSM total fraction of errors | will exponentially decay towards some non-zero fixed fraction | of errors. That's because, on average in the long term, the | world probably changes at an approximately fixed rate | (relative to total mappable features in the world) and OSM is | updated/corrected at a fixed rate (relative to fraction of | mappable features that are wrong or missing). Even given the | benefit of a lot of time, the OSM can never catch up with a | mapping service that updates faster because that other | service will have a different equilibrium. | dheera wrote: | Yeah I was here to say this. OSM doesn't even compete with | Google Maps, or rather, Google Maps doesn't even compete with | OSM if you want to do any kind of large scale analysis on | streets without silly licensing restrictions. | orthoxerox wrote: | I find OSM (the website) is a great map. It's blazing fast | (Google Maps aren't), and the color scheme is very clear. When I | want to explore some random place on Earth (that uses a writing | system I can actually read) I always use OSM. | | Google Maps (or its local competitors) are great for spatial | searches (ATMs in the area, shops in the area) and routing. | | Finally, Wikimapia is great for virtual urban exploration. If you | saw an abandoned building or warehouse, or found a suspicious | bald spot in the middle of the forest when using OSM or Google | Maps, the best place to learn about it is Wikimapia. | ivan_ah wrote: | Direct link to Wikimapia https://wikimapia.org/ | | Highly recommended for looking around when you move to a new | neighbourhood or city... I would say tourism, but that is NaT | (not a thing) right now. | luplex wrote: | Before Christmas, i downloaded StreetComplete so I have something | to do on my daily walks. This post just reminded me to actually | upload my changes. | | The whole process worked flawlessly, i can recommend it. | | The only problem is that there seems to be not a lot of community | coordination, so I'm not sure which data types I should focus on. | sildur wrote: | > I worry myself every time I open Google Maps on my phone. I | feel like a traitor. | | Easy, uninstall it and use only their web version, which is | hideous in mobile. | Pinus wrote: | OSM:s biggest problem seems to be that it offers a product -- a | map database -- that very few people need, and even fewer people | can use, while still relying on millions of ordinary people for | data collection (which means understanding the data model, which | is getting hideously complex, because it tries to encode | _everything_ that can be located). | lukeqsee wrote: | The value is in the derivative works (literally hundreds of | companies directly and indirectly rely on OSM for their map | data). | matkoniecz wrote: | > which means understanding the data model | | This not needed. You can use iD (default in-browser editor) | without direct tag use. | | On Android you can use StreetComplete that has no exposure to | tags or tagging schemes and requires 0 OSM-specific knowledge | to use (except creating OSM user account). | | > OSM:s biggest problem seems to be that it offers a product -- | a map database -- that very few people need, and even fewer | people can use | | Most people use it indirectly, that is not some fundamental | problem. | larzang wrote: | Individuals may not need it, but companies? The company I work | for has multiple products which internally rely on geolocating | arbitrary addresses. OSM keeps our costs way down, we only have | to pay Google when OSM fails a match and we fall back to the | Google Maps API. I doubt we're uncommon in this. OSM had less | of a programmatic use when Google's free monthly tiers were | large and subsequent costs low, but that hasn't been the case | for a good while now. | Shank wrote: | My biggest critique with OSM and OSM-based maps is that | contributing an OSM change has an unknown time delay between "OSM | change" and "actual map software updates to have it." I was | infuriated to find multiple geography issues in Apple Maps in my | area. I went to OSM, and the underlying source has already been | corrected. The satellite imagery is correct, but the map layers | for navigation and travel are wrong. How long will it take for | OSM changes to make it into Apple Maps? No clue. | | You can submit corrections for some info (like place details) to | Apple and Google and they'll change within 24-48 hours. If you | update OSM, however, it'll take you an unknown amount of time. | Some iOS apps proudly champion being able to update OSM data | monthly -- but that's still huge compared to basically over a | weekend. | maxerickson wrote: | The changes make it into the database in more or less real time | and there are condensed feeds providing the changes for the | last minute, hour, or day. | | So the delays are on the data consumer side. A lot of that ends | up being QA, because big companies don't want to publish | vandalism. Of course, when they accidentally do publish | vandalism, their slower update pace becomes a weakness. | Drdrdrq wrote: | Does that happen? One would assume that the slower update | pace is just a matter of policy, so with vandalism they would | be able to apply fixes much faster. | maxerickson wrote: | There was a notable example a few years ago. | | https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2018/08/30/osm-condemns- | vanda... | | OSM had the vandalism removed in a couple hours. A few | weeks later, the QA mistakenly let the vandalism through | and it wasn't corrected until it got quite a lot of | attention. | emacsen wrote: | I'm the author of both "Why the World Needs OpenStreetMap" and | "Why OpenStreetMap is in serious trouble". | | I think the issue of a mobile application is an interesting one, | and on its own is not an issue, but combined with other issues, | it is. | | My favorite OSM based map app was Mapzen Mobile. | | The reason I think Mapzen Mobile worked better than other apps | was that it generally understood the ways in which users use OSM | data, which largely ties into the critiques I and others have | around OSM's geolocation services. They're very Euro-centric- | even in comparison to how a North American uses the same | services. | | But as long as map apps aren't good, then users will be forced to | use proprietary maps, which feeds back into itself. | | We have some amazing opportunities- more now than ever, but the | OSMF needs to put conscious effort into direction, making (ie | funding and overseeing development) over mechanisms to allow for | regular people to have OSM as easily _and as well_ as Google | Maps. | | This is no small feat, but I think that such a design could be | designed- especially if it combined not only the existing mapping | technologies for data (ie vector maps across the wire) but also | localization of geolocation in a manner that mimiced the way | geolocation data itself is crowdsourced- making it easy to build | more relevant results from search and display the information | people want quickly and easily. | | But like the author, I am disheartened and have my doubts that | the OSMF would take on such an ambitious task. I wish very much | that they would! | necovek wrote: | It's actually quite an interesting dynamic: USA OSM data was | largely bootstrapped from public domain government data. | European data was, in many instances, created from scratch. | | Serbian OSM is generally more up to date and more correct than | Google Maps. | | I believe that one of the approaches has led to people who are | more invested in the result and you can guess which one is | that. | | But to be honest, I find OsmNav better than Google Maps for in | car navigation, though they both suck. Perhaps Google Maps is | not bad when you can voice control it, but you can't in | Serbian. | juliansimioni wrote: | (Former Mapzen employee here). | | I _think_ you're talking about Eraser | Map(https://github.com/mapzen/eraser-map) right? | | It was awesome! It's the closest I know of to "Google Maps, but | open source and based on open data". It was an app built for | _end users_, not OSM editors. And it worked pretty darn well. | When it didn't, any problems could (at least theoretically) be | addressed with improvements to OSM data or the Mapzen open- | source projects. | | There was a team of at least two people working on it full | time, plus lots of work on the design, product, and integration | with geocoding, routing, transit etc. The multi-modal | (switching from walking to transit to car, etc) transit | directions were particularly awesome. | | I used it as my daily driver for much of my navigation around | NYC, and as time went on only had to fall back to Google Maps | maybe 25% of the time, usually for missing POI data. | | Unfortunately I think it's one of the few Mapzen projects that | hasn't seen new life after the company shut down, and like you | said it would take quite a bit of work (read: money) to keep it | going. It might be possible with some work to find grant money | through a couple organizations. The OSMF has done some awesome | work lately with the micro-grants, but this would definitely be | a level we haven't seen (yet). | twic wrote: | > The reason I think Mapzen Mobile worked better than other | apps was that it generally understood the ways in which users | use OSM data, which largely ties into the critiques I and | others have around OSM's geolocation services. They're very | Euro-centric- even in comparison to how a North American uses | the same services. | | Could you expand on this? When you say "ways in which users use | OSM data", do you mean "ways in which American users use OSM | data"? What is wrong with OSM's geolocation services? What even | are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM was just a map! | What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric? | emacsen wrote: | > What is wrong with OSM's geolocation services? | | They come up with irrelevant results or no results at all. I | talked about this in more detail in "Why OSM is in serious | trouble". | | > What even are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM | was just a map! | | OSM isn't a map, it's a geographic database. | | By OSM's geolocation services, I mean Nominatim. Pelias gave | me better results but it's gone AFAIK. | | > What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric? | | People search for things differently in Europe than they do | in the US. | | As a small example, I will regularly search for | intersections, but I've been told Europeans don't often do | that. | juliansimioni wrote: | Hi! Pelias core maintainer and former Mapen employee here. | It is not gone :) | | After Mapzen shut down a co-worker and I founded Geocode | Earth(https://geocode.earth/) to continue working on the | Pelias project, funded by consulting and, primarily, a SaaS | much like Mapzen Search. | | Over the past 3 years the project has improved quite a bit, | and Geocode Earth has had solid growth (50% SaaS revenue in | 2020). We've been fully bootstrapped this whole time and | plan on continuing this well...indefinitely! | | In fact, intersection support is already present in Pelias | and will be rolling out to Geocode Earth soon :) | subins2000 wrote: | I use OsmAnd and there are a lot of features. What troubles | with Google Maps in India is that every road is considered | basically the same and the routes it calculate often tends to | be on very bad roads whereas OsmAnd tries to pick the road | based on quality/main-roads first then side roads. This is very | useful in India where many roads have potholes. Major roads | (national, state, district highways) are better maintained than | the rest. This distinction between roads are clearly mapped in | OSM, at least in Kerala. | | GMaps also tries to calculate the very shortest path possible, | but this often is a bad idea in India cause the roads won't be | that great to go through. | | Some of the things I like about OsmAnd: navigation-with-voice, | speedbump warnings, sightseeing notifications, trip | recording+stats, parking area finder, different profiles | (walking, driving, browsing etc.) :- all this available offline | :) | [deleted] | maire wrote: | I use only 1 metric to compare maps - are they accurate giving | directions to my address? | | Google Maps used to be great - far better than Map Quest. Waze | was pretty bad. Apple was initially bad. Open Street Maps was | pretty good except they thought my driveway was a road. | | In the past year Google got pretty bad. Apple became awesome. | About a year ago Open Street Maps improved. | | Then this morning I checked Open Street Maps and it now has the | exact same bug that has irritated me with Google! | | I suspect there is some bad code sharing between OSM and Google. | | Details - if your physical address is in a different county than | your postal office it confuses the heck out of Google. OSM used | to handle this just fine, but not now. | | Accuracy counts more than anything else! | etimberg wrote: | Is what you consider a driveway actually a driveway legally | speaking? In rural areas even if you own all the property | around the roadway, the road itself might be a public easement. | maire wrote: | The driveway was put in by my father - so no it is not a | roadway. | | I think there was wishful thinking since many of the OSM | maintainers are mountain bikers and the Santa Cruz mountains | has some desirable mountain biking paths. The back part of | our property is on The Soquel Demonstration Forest which has | an awesome mountain biking path. | | They were pretty good about fixing the issue when I pointed | it out. | lukeqsee wrote: | What app are you using? OSM itself (openstreetmap.org) doesn't | do routing, so I'm guessing the data itself is bad? It could be | a bad governmental open data merge. | maire wrote: | > What App are you using. | | I used the OSM web page. | | Just type in the address with zip code, and it takes you to a | completely different different zip code. This is a relatively | new bug. | | I find it interesting that I am down voted by 4 points. The | OSM fans must not understand the value of user testing. Maybe | it is the google fans who don't understand user testing. | j45 wrote: | Are there former google maps employees who could be hired to work | on OSM? Sounds like it could be something folks would be willing | to chip in for. | emacsen wrote: | The issue isn't lack of engineering but that the engineering in | OSM is entirely on the "value add" providers, that are the | companies using OSM. | | The OSM Foundation and general leadership (both official and | unofficial) are people who sell these services (map rendering | and geolocation) and appear blind to the need for a dedicated | effort to make it better. They instead rely on work done a | decade ago, proprietary work done by companies or else work | done by volunteers without coordination. | | Because of this, the situation persists and gets worse over | time. | j45 wrote: | I'm new to this problem and appreciate the scope of the | explanation. | lukeqsee wrote: | In my estimation, Google's data advantage mostly comes from | deploying millions of monetary units to sending physical cars | out to drive every road they could (and doing it over and over | again). | | How does OSM compete with that in a centralized way? I don't | think it can. OSM competes by decentralization and millions of | individual contributions. | | I don't think hiring a few people will move the needle much. | I'd be grateful to be wrong, though! | j45 wrote: | That's a fair point. I was imagining things from the user | experience layer and not the data. Both are important, I do | think friendlier the UX can be for basic things, the more I | could get folks I know to try using it instead. | | That is one way Waze started to get a leg up on Google Maps, | it's experience was creating a more meaningful experience for | the average driver...and as a result, data. | zelphirkalt wrote: | Well, so far I have always preferred OSM over Google Maps, simply | because of tracking and spying and because for me personally the | user interface delivered a better experience. Also it only needed | third party stuff when searching for routes from A to B. However, | lately the situation with OSM has drastically worsened, when they | started relying on fastly. I'll unfortunately have to find a new | map website now. | | Welcoming any suggestions for map websites with basic | functionality like OSM, but without relying on spying eyes. | Nextgrid wrote: | OSM has the same problem as many other open-source projects: not | enough focus on branding and user experience. | | Right now, if I want to use OSM on my iPhone and I search | "OpenStreetMap" in the App Store I get various applications under | various, unknown names. The closest to an "official" name would | be OSMaps, but it turns out even that one isn't official and has | no navigation capabilities. | | On Android, I don't have a phone to test with but seems like the | most popular option appears to be OsmAnd. Again, not only is the | name cryptic but doesn't imply anything unless you're already | familiar with OSM. "Google Maps", "Apple Maps", etc in contrast | automatically imply what the app is for even if you've never | heard of the brand itself. | | If OSM wants to succeed in the consumer space, they need to | release an official, "reference implementation" of a mobile | client with an UI comparable to the competition that a layman can | understand and use even if they have no idea what OSM is nor are | interested in contributing. | estaseuropano wrote: | But that would mean OSM Starts competing with its corporate | users. Not sure this will be a healthy strategy. | | What I would love to see would be an app allowing me to quickly | contribute to OSM, e.g. fix things, add street names or POIs, | etc. | bchanudet wrote: | On Android you can use StreetComplete. With it, you'll be | mostly able to add missing details around you, and the types | of quests available are very broad. Arguably, you can't fix | things with it, I heard there was an other app on F-Droid to | do this but I haven't tried it yet. | matkoniecz wrote: | "Arguably, you can't fix things with it" - you can fix | certain things, thanks to resurvey quest that were added. | | For example resurvey of old opening hours data, recent | version (v28.0) added also ability to directly handle shop | that is gone and replaced by another (it may not be | released for you, especially if you use F-Droid). See https | ://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/releases/ta... | for details. | | For full scale editing on Android see Vespucci. | orange_tee wrote: | OSM always worked better for me. I suspect this is going to be | very location dependent. I guess in the US Google tries really | hard to get good data or maybe it is easier to get good data. I | lived in various countries in Europe, always in smaller cities | and rural areas. OSM data is always more reliable for whatever | reason. I noticed and was rather surprised that even my small | hometown of 5000 people had multiple OSM contributors. | mynegation wrote: | That might be a good time to share my anecdote. Back in 2017 I | was driving in Mexico using maps.me in offline mode (saving on | ex-orbitant data roaming fees). At one point, the highway did a | wide turn, and some village was tucked away in this turn. | | Maps.me decided it would be a good idea to cut through the | village as its main street connected two points on the bending | highway like a chord. Yes, in terms of distance it was shorter, | if you do not account for the allowed speed limit and conditions. | I spent 10 minutes slowly crawling through the village trying not | to kill any chickens. I was also low on gas and had barely enough | to get to the next gas station, so I was not amused. | | Since then I always triple-check maps.me routes, looking at the | whole route and checking it against google maps if I have a | chance. | | To be fair, it has probably more to do with maps.me routing | algorithm than OSM data, but it is hard to know. | kortilla wrote: | Accounting for speed limits is such a basic thing in a route | plan. I wonder if there was incorrect information in the source | about the limits. | gwilikers wrote: | Why apples as a product fails to compete with oranges - part 1/3 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-02 23:00 UTC)