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Your anecdote falls into the trap I see often when comparing OSS software vs proprietary. You’ve found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better. However, the opposite needs to be true for adoption. OSM needs to work better for 80% of the use cases, not the other 20.

Are gaps in cell coverage really that obscure a use case? Sure, if you're only using the maps to route you around traffic jams in your home town, offline maps aren't going to offer you any benefit. But I think most users also want their maps to continue to be reliable when heading out of town on a road trip. Google has improved the behavior of their maps app when data connectivity is interrupted, but it's still a sub-par experience and quite frustrating.

Google makes it trivial to download maps for offline use, I have multiple states downloaded in Maps.

Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating".

by trivial, you mean logged into a google account where all 'offline' activity is synced and mapped to your account once connectivity is restored. I also find it hard to believe that Google maps offline can't give voice navigation (reverts to beeps) and that requires constant data connectivity... the app is constantly phoning home too.

Google Maps is pretty bad without fast, reliable data, I remember trying it on Sprint, no joy unless I could pull at least a megabit a second.

The problem is that there is no user-settable 'offline mode', so as soon as Google detects an Internet connection (even a very slow one) it starts trying to behave as if it's on a 100Mbps LTE connection. This makes many Google apps totally unusable on low-bandwidth networks.

When you open apps like Hangouts, Google Maps, etc. on low-bandwidth connections, they immediately try to sync an onslaught of data before making the UI responsive based on the existing offline state. Data that could take hours to sync at 5kb/s.

There's no reason I haven't have a text-only messaging conversation perfectly well on a 2G network. Except when Google tries to sync 50MB of pictures from a conversation I haven't even selected yet, and all of my 500 contacts' profile photos, before I can do anything else.

Incidentally, this is why everyone outside of North America uses WhatsApp.

Heh, I'm an avid Signal User due to that, not terribly much message syncing going on as the message database is stored on your device :3

What are you talking about? There's literally a "WiFi only" toggle in Google Maps app.

How well do you suppose that would work on say, a satellite connection over wi-fi?

I have used it all day, every day I that I've worked in the last seven years on Sprint and very rarely have a problem.

One strange thing I've noticed over the years is there's a difference on Android vs Apple -- can't count the times I've gone to the wrong place following the Android tablet in the car only to have to pull up the address on the iPhone to get there. When they first put the tablets in the cars I was using the navigation and it took me into the alley between the houses and "you have arrived"...in their backyard. Not very helpful.

Honestly, though, I rarely use navigation unless I'm feeling really lazy or going somewhere complicated enough that I can't figure out how to get there by just glancing at the map. 100% don't use navigation on the stupid tablet in the car.

I use mine anytime I have to go through high route traffic like interstates as their traffic data has saved me countless hours rerouting me through some accident. Totally worth it

Unless the place you need is "unavailable for download".

It may be trivial, but I have actually never found a way to mark them and assure myself the download was complete and the maps are available before a trip.

The download included a persistent notification informing me of the entire download process, including percentage and a finish message. Perhaps you disabled notifications from the app.

Ouch! Yes, I did disable it. That explains it, thanks.

Google Maps keeps notifying me of "you are at X, would you like to review it?" So it can't make useful notification anymore either.

> Google Maps experience with offline downloaded maps is 100% quality and absolutely not "sub-par" or "frustrating".

Selecting areas to download is more of a hassle than with OSMAnd, and the map data requires more storage space. I've also frequently experienced severe degradation in the detail of the voice prompts for turn by turn navigation when the phone doesn't have a data connection, where the phone only saying "in a quarter mile, turn right" without giving me a street name or exit number, let alone lane information.

At some point, there was also this undocumented feature where it fetches not just the directions, but a little extra data so it can reroute you on the device if you miss a turn and your phone has gone offline. It only works for small detours, does not take traffic into account, etc.

There's a paper on how this works from Microsoft Research and KIT (where all of the commonly used routing techniques were developed!): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

Yeah, Google hired Robert Geisberger...

OSS's greatest leverage points have always been in the niches, the cases where _if_ it's useful in your situation, you are a very lucky person indeed.

Having read the article I think it's using a great little leverage point: Do you have a website with a map? Does the map not work anymore? ("Yikes, will my map stop working," people think)

OSS doesn't have to win big popularity battles; the little cases here and there just add up over time. Soon it's in the background of everything, even proprietary software, because it's so useful that migration and contributions to the source code make sense.

More like anywhere vaugely rural, Google Maps seems to fail. Going out to the San Juans? Have fun with missing business listings, incorrect road traces and names, or worse.

Just in the past decade Kitsap County (just across the water from Seattle) has renumbered 300k addresses. Google Maps is buying their address database from a vendor that rarely pulls this publicly posted data, thus leaving Google a few years behind (except for spotty user corrections). OSM comparatively gets this data right from the county every week, which is great since they're renumbering 30k more addresses currently. Google will take a few more years to get any of this data if they stick to their current operational model.

Entire countries and continents are far more detailed on OSM than Google. There's a feedback cycle where having lots of active users to passively harvest data or receive user-submitted corrections from improves your map quality. Well, Google Maps is a really bloated app that can barely open on the budget Android phones people use in most developing countries (hell, GMaps pegs the CPU on a 2-year old flagship for several seconds just starting the app).

When nobody uses Google Maps, Google Maps will never have good street/address data. In developing countries there's no official government office to get this data from, just user data.

It strikes me as obvious that what Google should do is support OSM upstream and use OSM data in their product, just as what they do with Wikipedia.

Google feels it has a superior product, which is true for certain types of data in large cities. Why contribute to Wikipedia when your the publisher of Encyclopedia Britannica, you'd eat your own product alive for no notable benefit.

> use OSM data in their product

OSM has a share-alike clause, which would require G to share all their own data with everyone.

> found a obscure, uncommon use case where OSM works better.

Isn't that the entire point of open source technologies? If a platform is open source, then you can make whatever custom changes you personally need and make it work for your particularly scenario.

Downloadable maps, archivable maps, platform independent maps, faster loading maps, more accurate maps, more niche data centric maps, and fail-safe maps are all examples of maps that a particular person needs in a particular setting at a particular time.

It is not software for the masses, just software for the massive number of little things you could possibly need.

I'm not sure why it has to be either/or. I use Google Maps routinely for traffic routing among other things. I also routinely use OSM to have offline maps when traveling, for hiking, and various other things.

Working without a network is niche now?

Anywhere you go far from a city will lack a network.

Or working on a slow, spotty network, which is par for the course for 'the next billion users' that tech execs keep talking about.

Or if your mobile connection has strict data caps...

Also Here was useful to me when I burned up my data allowance.

It’s really useful when you’re traveling abroad and might not have access to any data right away.

You obviously did not read the previous post or you don't know what HERE maps are.

https://maps.me/download/ (free for iOS and Android) let's you download countries for offline use. Includes search and car navigation. Based on OpenStreetMap data.

I just downloaded the app and opened it, and it showed me white, and told me I had to download my city first (56MB). I doubt you can download whole countries at that rate.

Also, including the App that was a lot of downloading just to look at a single map.

> I doubt you can download whole countries at that rate.

What? GMaps alone is already 30MB and has to download all of its maps on the fly. What do you think, that Google alone has a magic way of making up maps out of thin air?

And of course you can download whole countries at once, Germany for instance is ca. 1GB, which is totally doable on your home WiFi.

You are not getting a working google maps (or here maps, or bing maps) app for much less.

I have several countries and states on my phone, totaling about 600MB; I download a country on WiFi before leaving for the airport, and I'm guaranteed to have a working map with routing regardless of how well data works when I arrive.

maps.me is really excellent. The only thing is, it's owned by Yandex (the russian equivalent of Google), so your whereabouts are reported to the NKVD/KGB/FSB/whatever-it-is-called-these-days rather than to the NSA.

I use Maps.me, it's OSM based offline maps. Pretty often they're better than Google maps when I just want to look at a map and see different paths and so on, I rarely use Google maps to look up businesses, which seems to be their main focus. And it's a great security to always have maps available regardless of network connectivity.

https://maps.me/download/

+1 Here maps (it's the old Nokia maps, now under Daimler and others).

Probably the best UX of any map apps and some great sounding voices.

I think we both have the same experience. User interface and user experience in Here are heads and shoulder above google maps IMHO, so much that after this, I also installed Here maps on my regular phone. The best interface is still on my old windows phone, with zero ads, back when Microsoft owned Here.

Someone said I found an obscure usecase. I disagree. Navigating without a reliable data connection is not obscure and uncommon!!

Even if it was, my obscure case is very embedded in my mind. I don't care about the 99% cases when google maps work. I care about the 1% when it doesn't work while I need it.

This is why after this, I've decided it was safer to migrate my mapping needs to a more robust solution.

I don't care about how wide user adoption is. I care that it solves my problem better than the alternatives!

> I don't care about the 99% cases when google maps work. I care about the 1% when it doesn't work while I need it.

This right here is a huge reason I distrust Google apps. When it's good, it's good, and when it isn't... it's terrible.

> Probably the best UX of any map apps

Except for the ads, which I consider to be pretty terrible UX compared to not having any ads.

I'd be willing to pay to avoid any ads in HERE Maps.

I've been using Here Maps for 4-5 years now and haven't seen a single add. Are you sure we are talking about the same app?

The Play Store entry explicitly lists the app as containing ads.

I've definitely seen ads in it before, can't recall on which of Windows/Android/iOS platforms though.

What got me to stop using Here on Android was that when I chose a contact or other address and selected Google Maps to launch it took me to the location. When I chose Here maps it took me to my current location - if I wanted to use that address I'd clicked, I could go copy and paste it.

> No network, so no lookup of business names, but Here maps offline with street addresses did better than Google Maps online.

I haven't used Here Maps so I'm not sure what it's like, but at least using OSMand I do have lookup of business names. Furthermore, I've been planning a trip recently and found out that Wikivoyage actually offers GPX files next to at least the articles on the places I'm going, containing the addresses and descriptions of places of interest. I loaded them into OSMand, and it's a pretty great experience.

I would say that when it comes to Europe maps, TomTom ones are hands down the best. But thats not weird as majority of their business resolves around Europe.

Google Maps is also easy to download for offline use, you just have to plan ahead. If you're residing in EU, your data plan is valid everywhere within the EU. Here Maps or HereWeGo or whatever it is called is full with tracking software [1], just like Google Maps (actually more trackers than Google Maps [2] and Google Maps Go [3]; with Google apps you know it is just Google who tracks you plus whoever has authority over them (governments)). It is also proprietary, just like Google Maps. All of that in contrast to OSM.

[1] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/reports/search/com.her...

[2] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/reports/11485/

[3] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/reports/7583/

Google Maps only supports offline maps in selected countries. Places like China, for instance, are not supported even though the online coverage is perfectly good in most major cities.

Which countries aren't supported?

Can't find a list but it does state in [1] that some regions aren't supported for various reasons. The only example that I can think about off the top of my head is China.

[1]: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838

Google Maps does let you save offline areas. And while search is not as capable when offline, I find if you have an address it works, and often it works if you only have a business name. What doesn't work are the walking or public transit navigation options. However, if you can find free public Wi-Fi (which is easier and easier) you can plot the directions while online, and then it will continue to work when you go offline.

Yes it's a little less convenient than live data, but it works great for me. I have an Android phone with no mobile data plan. So whenever I'm in an area that I'm not familiar with, I just download to offline maps and I'm good to go.

For the first 25 years I drove a car, I had only paper maps and/or written directions whenever I needed to go anywhere. So Google Maps even in offline mode is still like magic to me.

Somewhat similar. I have a multiple generations old iPhone in a waterproof Otterbox case and I mostly use it for various GPS and mapping apps. I do have to remember to keep it charged--its battery life isn't what it was--but at a minimum, it's a useful backup to have.

If you ever venture into Android land, consider a phone with a removable battery for your next device. After having I really liked become barely chargeable, I made sure my next phone had a removable battery. I'm glad I did!

Eh. I know the tradeoffs. If I really cared I could get a new one put in for relatively little money. I may but it's a pretty old phone at this point.

You could try one of the Garmin handheld hiking GPS. I have an eTrex 20 that can read OSM maps and runs for a week on two AA batteries.

I have thought about it but it's really just a backup device so never seemed worth it.

Google Maps also offers offline maps.

came here to say that. it was a pleasant surprise in january of this year - had little internet connection while exploring a small island (got off a cruise ship). Found google maps had an 'offline mode', so I just downloaded the maps for the island and was good to go. Wasn't until April that maps notified me that the data was expiring and would be deleted.

If I am lost on an island, the last thing I want is google to decide by itself that my data is too old and my expired maps should be deleted for my own good.

It was 4 months later and it gave the option of keeping it.

Which can't be downloaded in many places. I assume it has something to do with their licenses but, outside the US, I have run into a number of situations where I couldn't download an area.

ADDED: I always download the OSM data into Maps.me on my iPhone before I travel internationally. If nothing else, it's a useful backup.