Title is editorialized because the original is, frankly, clickbait garbage
I am pretty over these videos of people whining about the amount of data big tech collects while refusing to move to alternatives because “muh convenience”.
For those unaware, Organic Maps (uses OSM) is really good! It’s good for 90% of all ur navigation needs. For the rest 10%, there’s no good alternative to google maps unfortunately.
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Nothing competes with osmand for hiking or cycling.
Some further clarification on the closed source thing from their FAQ:
Why is Magic Earth free? What is the business model?
Magic Earth is free for all our end-users but we also have a paid Magic Earth SDK for business partners. For instance Selectric.de (a supplier for navigation solutions for ambulances and fire trucks), Smarter AI (developing ADAS systems) or Absolute Cycling (using the platform on bicycles). For more info on the SDK, you can check magiclane.com.
Will Magic Earth be Open Source?
No; since it is also used commercially (we have a paid Magic Earth SDK for business partners), we cannot make the code public.
Like there’s no open source project with commercial paid licence ?
Or a source-available model.
Traffic updates aren’t exactly a problem for me as I travel everywhere using my bicycle/public transit.
The only problem I face is that I can’t get public transit information on OSM. Now ideally the city should be the one making this information accessible. Unfortunately for me, I currently live in a shitty city (although not for long). Therefore, within a matter of months, Organic would meet almost 100% of my navigation needs.
pretty sure organic is working on that, I remember there being docs on building with PT data.
My issue with these is that my use case is public transport, for that it seems like GMaps is still unbeatable, i hope to find an alternative as good or better based on OSM soon because it’s the one tool i still have no alternative to
Where are you from? Where I live (in the Netherlands) there’s an official tool from the public transport services which works just as well as gmaps to plan your train/tram/metro/bus journey.
Same same. This is a problem in shithole cities. Good cities have their own transit apps (which are like Uber for public transit).
Out of curiosity, any examples? I know for NYC people use Citymapper, but that’s available for most big cities.
Calgary, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, etc.
If you’re American, some of them support transit now. I have Magic Earth and it supports it in most major metro areas (and even my dinky little city I believe lol)
I think 5 out of that 10% is supplemented by OsmAnd. But it does not have public transport schedules and traffic data.
Traffic data?
If a grandmother had a penis, she would be a grandfatherTo implement this function, Osmand should gather location data from every user.Not necessarily. The data is out there. I don’t think they could make it a part of the core app for legal reasons, but OsmAnd has a plugin system. Basically anyone could make it other than OsmAnd devs. Distribution could happen over an F-droid repo.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=k5eL_al_m7Q
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
the data is out there
Where? GMaps sources this data from each of its users.
That’s where. But also I wouldn’t be surprised if there are also other sources.
And Google also trusts that data because it’s collected at OS level.
If an open project tried to collect location data they could not trust it. There’s no way to prevent malicious users from sending bogus data.
There are often individual apps for various cities and transport organizations.
Traffic has always been a mixed bag. Yeah it’s nice to be able to see that street A is more busy than street B. But so can everybody else, and they’re all going to use street B now.
But so can everybody else, and they’re all going to use street B now.
In my experience that’s not how it works out. It’s about balancing the load, while making the driver take the least amount of detour needed.
Street B only has to handle the remaining traffic, and street A has a chance to unclog or at least be a faster route as some of its traffic does not exist anymore.The app doesn’t control what people do, it just makes recommendations based on busy segments, based on data which is already obsolete by the time it’s being used. Ultimately the lemmings will do whatever their lemming brain tells them to.
(That is, assuming the app doesn’t actually try to spread people around the various routes. But I doubt that any app maker wants to assume responsibility for that.)
Ultimately traffic apps are mostly useless. You can’t “solve” traffic congestion with apps any more than you can make water flow faster through a pipe. Congestion is constrained by available road space and choke points. Google Maps is mostly an excuse for Google to collect location data, with a thin layer of features on top to make it seem worthwhile.
Water does not think, it flows where it can.
People while driving cannot know which route isn’t clogged, because cars are not flowing like water. If that would be the case all the small streets around main roads would be full too. If a street is clogged, and the driver sees it, they can decide to go on a different route, but in waze if they are using it to plan a route, it’ll try actively to avoid roads that are too busy.If that would be the case all the small streets around main roads would be full too.
They are. If they aren’t then your city is not really that busy. It’s actually a major problem in some cities for the residents of small residential streets that suddenly start getting lots of traffic because their street gets recommended on Waze or Maps.
also a lot of open maps alternatives rely on YOUR contribution to be good instead of a hired team at some corpo.
use it and help out with it and you will have your open mapping app!
Which GoogleMaps alternative has user reviews? I downloaded organic maps suggested here and there are no reviews. When I’m in a new town I need to know where I can and where I shouldn’t eat, shop or stay. At least there are some icons on organic maps, but that’s it.
The “user” reviews on Google Maps (and similar platforms like Yelp) can be fake. Go to the Fake Review Watch channel on YouTube or visit their website if you want to see real examples of this. This is a service that businesses of all sizes, all over the world are paying for - sometimes on a massive scale.
However if you still really want to rely on Google reviews, use GMaps WV.
GoogleMaps reviews are fake in favor of corporations, it’s useless data
Not when you’re new in an unknown city. In my local city the ratings still make sense, I compared it with my own experience, so why would that change drastically elsewhere? It’s often the only option you have, visiting every website individually is too time consuming and doesn’t tell you anything about the service either. I bet even you look at reviews. It’s easy to say their are faked but there is no non faked alternative.
what the f are you doing that you need to vet this many businesses in such a short time span?
I seriously don’t look at the reviews; I don’t even use google maps because it’s useless to me as a pedestrian.
Visit a new city and spontaneously finding a good restaurant matching your criteria. I heavily rely on reviews for this usecase as well as being able to search e.g. for „vegan restaurants“ in a certain area, which also matches reviews with the word in it.
The problem for me is when someone sends me a location pin it is almost always a Google map link. I have the same issue with people in my community using whatsapp.
Can’t you just open that in a web browser? Take the address, put it in an alternative map app. Problem solved.
Most people into Privacy, either stumbled upon the niche or work(ed) in some IT or related field. Have tried talking to the family, they are in denial or do not care. Or think that using WhatsApp is a wise choice and/or they are immune to ads. Somehow. It’s like talking to a goat who has more desire for habit over sense.
I remember playing with Google Now, thinking it ‘neat’ and then within seconds realizing that in order for it to work optimally meant giving Google everything. It got me to root my phone and removed Goople Play Services and/or different ROMs. Today, I do not use Google for anything or use front-ends with a VPN or if ever really needed, Tor.
Organic maps or OSMAnd. Plus, I find these two better for cycling and hiking, over Gmaps. If you must use Gmaps briefly, then GMaps WV from F-Droid.
What is the benefit of using GMaps WV over the web client in a browser?
Because we use OsmAnd
Giving it a try since I haven’t heard of this.
It seems to have cool options, but for navigation it’s just completely unusable.
Who in their right mind would charge a subscription fee to download and/or update maps?
Edit: I only found out about this after my father downloaded the app on his phone, and it said he only has 5 downloads remaining before downloading the map for my state. It’s extremely dumb for a “privacy focused maps app”
Only from walled garden app stores, the full unrestricted OSMAnd APK is available for free without restrictions from fdroid
Not if you have an iphone.
Thats a known issue with iPhone though. Nothing new added
That doesn’t make it better.
Well tell apple to let you sideload apps.
If you really want to you can just download them outside the app for free. I like that it provides a free option for those with more time than money and a paid option for those with more money than time.
Because development is not free
But isn’t it open sourced? Can’t they have like a buymeacoffee? Not lock the most important feature behind a paywall?
It’s not locked, build it yourself or download the apk from fdroid. If that is too complicated for you (or anyone else), maybe pay for the service being provided then?
Ahh yes, let me install an Android PacKage on an iPhone
That just goes with a territory of having an iPhone. When you bought that device you signed on to a culture of consumption that is enforced by the developer of that device.
The developer can’t force Apple to let the developer give it to you for free. Apple doesn’t tolerate free very well and anything that is free on Apple is likely either a privacy nightmare or is paid for by some subscription you have with Apple.
This isn’t a problem with the app It’s a problem with the Apple.
If only there was some alternative like paying for the software you use 🙄
Because a subscription is definitely a viable alternative.
Normal people: Gladly give google maps access to location data at all times and never think about it
Me: Instinctively worry that on the rare occasions I do use google maps it’s somehow identifying me and keeping track of all the locations I look at, so I sometimes look at random places I’m not really interested in just to throw off the algorithms.
But most of the time I prefer osmand.
Me: can’t install Google Maps because my phone doesn’t have gapps. Awesome.
Oh yeah, I tend to forget that there’s an app and it’s not just a website.
Oh, yeah, I do use the website sometimes to convert an address to GPS coordinates and load that into OSMAnd
Osmand is really cool and it’s really capable but I understand that it isn’t for people who don’t want to tinker a bit to make things work just right for them.
For that Organic Maps is what I recommend.
You: thinking they weren’t already tracking you by a zillion other means including wifi/bt and cellular triangulation
Me: google-free wifi-only phone with all radios/mic/camera physically disconnected unless I need something specific
Or have your phone location turned on and be super boring back and forth. When you deviate use a burner.
Normal people: Gladly give google maps access to location data at all times and never think about it
Yet also same normal people get utterly genuinely shock when they see a map of their past locations for the last 3 months.
Do they though?
TL;DW?
EDIT: thank you guys for the summaries.
Google saw neat idea, built cool software, users happy. Replace cars to generate map data with phones for utmost accuracy. Trends of maximizing profit from cool technology makes users sad and services suck like other popular sites. Host begs Google not to make maps suck next.
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Try organic maps
Also I am not surprised that OSM is good in India. India seems to become the Foss and DIY hub of the world.
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It has come a long way in to years. I would give it a shot as the UI is easier to use
I’ve been trying to use osmand but it doesnt have public transport capabilities or live updates which is just too much its missing out on to switch for 100% of tasks
I find public transport like buses extremely lacking, using google I ended up on the wrong part of the city, best to use local apps for it.
It’s fine to use it for 80% of tasks too and try to contribute to it becoming available for 100% of tasks.
I for one don’t talk about it… because I don’t use Google Maps. I briefly mention OSM or CityMapper when people send me GoogleMaps links but otherwise better to show than tell IMHO.
Well video is about regular people, not us
what’s a good alternative if one’s using GMaps mainly for travelling instead of navigation (i.e. looking up nearby restaurants and getting reviews, public transport, attractions and their opening hours, etc.)?
Organic maps is what I use. Keep in mind OSM is built by the community so in places with lower tech literacy it will incomplete
human interaction
what if you’re autistic?
What if you have one arm?
