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?
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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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’ve used it exclusively for 5 years for the privacy benefits. Destination and address search is BAD. Navigation is adequate.
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)
It just doesn’t have the data to find every place you want to find. Didn’t use it for driving directions, but walking directions in South Korea were excellent. Google doesn’t have them!
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 …
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.
I often use maps.me in the UK, which sources the same mapset as OSMand, and it’s… Good? Very useful when you’re out of signal. The OSM dataset is about the best I know of for walking, even compared to Ordnance Survey, which many consider the best. I find their online maps, even on dedicated GPS devices, cluttered and not very zoomable. I’ve spent many hours adding to OSM over the years and it’s quite wonderful to see local features that I added popping up in all kinds of places - it’s amazing how many commercial mapping options source data from there.
I do agree that Google Maps is the best at routing, especially for traffic and re-routing options. I often have it on even for commutes and more than once it’s saved me getting stuck in bad traffic because a road was closed.
I’ve used organic maps for a while but had a problem in a trip I had to arrive on time and there was a change in the road that wasn’t in open street maps that almost caused me losing a test I had so when I really need to make it I choose Waze lately. And I live in a big city where traffic info is a must so I’m using less of organic maps because of that…Waze gets me off heavy traffic while organic maps doesn’t show arriving time correctly so…great alternative but not that reliable about traffic info depending on your needs
I’m in the same boat: driving and live in the US. Frankly, the biggest gripe I have with it is its terrible POI-related coverage & UX.
I’ve used only OSMAnd+ for years, the biggest trick is to get the latitude and longitude coordinates via https://www.latlong.net for your destination. As far as timing, I’ve never experienced longer routes. There are settings to indicate which route types you prefer, but you can also see the different routes to get to the same place and choose accordingly.
All those apps work fine for me, but I live in a heavily populated urban area, so I imagine the quality of data is probably pretty high here. Magic Earth is by far the best experience, IMO, but I like the extreme customizability of OSMAnd+ (no idea what the + is for though, is there another version that is not as extra?)
I wonder, if you’re having issues with map quality, you might be able to help yourself and everyone else around your area by using the StreetComplete app and/or the OSM website to submit corrections. The changes you make should take effect almost immediately in any app you prefer.
I use Magic Earth for my motorcycle, since I’m often out of cell coverage and having fully offline routing is nice. I specifically have it set to avoid motorways, and choose the longer route on back roads if it can. And it works pretty well for that.
Have you customized the routing settings at all in Magic Earth? You can change some stuff for how it calculates routes.
That said anything doing local routing is likely always going to be worse than Google Maps which is doing routing calculations somewhere else based on a lot more data.
