I ask because I have tried both and neither consistently find destinations I need, and when they do, they don’t route me there in the fastest or most efficient way possible. My first experience with Organic Maps, for instance, tried to turn what was usually a 4 hour drive into a nearly 6 hour drive. I used Google Maps to get there instead.
Google Maps is still the best navigation I’ve used, followed closely by Magic Earth, which gets the job done but still isn’t all that great. I find myself resorting to Google Maps 9 times out of 10 because even Magic Earth will add 15-30 minutes to any trip. Even when I do use Magic Earth, I have to double-check it against Google’s navigation just to make sure I’m not wasting any extra time or gas money on the road.
Also, a little gripe with OSMAnd that probably isn’t too big of a deal, but OSMAnd can’t find anything unless I download my state map. It tells me “nothing found within 5 miles” and gives me the option to expand the radius. But at 10, 15, 20, all the way up to 50 miles, it won’t find I’m looking for. Like I said, not too big a deal since downloading the map of my state solves this issue, but it’s still inconvenient and kind of a waste of internal storage space given that other apps can navigate successfully using online maps.
I’m wondering how any of you get by using OSMAnd / Organic Maps as I’ve seen people post on Lemmy that they do. Am I just missing something? Or are these apps really as bad as I think they are?
Edit: I should specify that I use navigation mainly for driving and Olive in the US. Seems like people biking / hiking in the EU have a bit of an easier time with some of these apps
I’ve heard OpenStreetMap isn’t that good in the US because there’s just not enough volunteers there. In germany, however, it’s more up to date than Google Maps from my experience, aside from stores and the like. Routes on Organic Maps are the same as on Google Maps here.
But the navigation experience is dogshit!
wdym exactly?
in France, we’ve been using it for years now and it works fine
its efficiency may depend on the number of volunteers that map a country and France seems to be in top 3. That may explain why it works here
I’ve had the exact same experience. The maps are great but the navigation (at least by car) is just not there yet. I’ve tried it a bunch of times and after getting sent off the highway and along dirt roads in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason I gave up on it.
Well this hasn’t happened to me yet. The lack of real time traffic warnings is a bit annoying tho.
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I have not used either for cars but I have tried both for driving bicycles. The thing with open street map is that they have a lot more of the small streets that bikes can go on but cars can’t. In my experience google maps usually wants me to drive my bike right on some huge multi-lane car road for 3 hours and totally ignores the bike path right next to it. When I went on a 1 month bicycling trip I tried both but found that OSMAnd had vastly better suited roads. Some of the tiniest tiny roads it sent me on were some of the most memorable of the whole journey. Sometimes the path in OSMAnd will just be a dirt path half a meter wide and I love that. I thought many times who on earth even added all these roads! I’m so thankful for every local nerd who added every single dirt road in his neighborhood on there. Simply amazing sometimes. But yeah it doesn’t work at all if you don’t download the map that’s true. Also I really can’t answer for navigating by car.
For me it’s at its best when using it offline and without decent phone signal. I mostly use it off the beaten track, cycling, hiking and when needing to understand the terrain. I wouldn’t use it as a substitute for Google maps or Waze though.
Same, would love to switch completely to an OSM based app. But my main use case currently is for hiking, the trails are usually better, and for situations where I have poor cell reception.
I use it daily for travel by bike or foot (kombined with BRouter). And its awsome!
Experiance by car is a bit mixed tho. (EU-Germany)
I’ve used it exclusively for 5 years for the privacy benefits. Destination and address search is BAD. Navigation is adequate.
It works fine for where I am but using a privacy friendly alternative is going to come with downsides, as it depends heavily on crowd sourced data.
Searching sucks big time for me too, as locations are not written in english here, you have to assume what the english transliteration might be. I just start with short close matches, and that usually works out after a little bit of digging. Google maps usually gives out most searched locations right away and often that’s you’re looking after.
We can only hope It will get better as more people start using it
EU here. I mostly user Organic Maps and navigation works fine, especially so when going hiking. Some kind souls have mapped even the minutest mountain path throughout the country. Seriously, I think I’ve only had one example where the path wasn’t on the map. And that was a wild trail. AND because I noticed in time, I tracked the trail from start to finish and added it to OSM later that day, so that’s no longer a problem. Gotta love it.
Looking up addresses though… That still needs improving.
osmand is objectively the best navigation tool for me lol, anything proprietary wouldn’t have as much detail nor the advanced features i want
Don’t own a car, for cycling ans walking in northern Europe it’s very good (except for the very occasional routing glitch).
i used osmad successfully in austria, germany, chech republic, slovakia, denmark as pedestrian, biker and driver. i tend to download the maps because i dont like depending on internet. it works fine, routes are nearly identical to google maps (my wife doesn’t trust osmand). of course you don’t have actual traffic warnings - on the flipside: google does tend to invent streets …
Not great for car navigation, I use Osmand 100% for bike navigation and for hiking
I really like OSMand but in my location they don’t have any address info (I can’t enter someone’s house address and find it, only street names) which is what I need 95% of the time when I need navigation. So I found myself using either Apple or Google maps more.
If you have some spare time you could start adding the missing house numbers. Easiest way is using StreetComplete on Android (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/)
Thank you, I’ll install this and try and start adding the house numbers.
