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Comment by tmoravec | Hacker News Reader

For hiking, check out https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka. While it focuses on central Europe, it regularly imports OSM data worldwide and I found the coverage pretty good.

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The international version of this is Windy Maps - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.wind.... I highly recommend it - excellent for outdoors / hiking, tracking route etc. Also has a very polished UI.

Great tip, thanks. This is also available for IOS and am planning to use it soon.

I'm also going to start using this app

with the downside of them being different services, thus you can't have the same account (saved places / routes) on both the web version and the mobile app. Am I wrong?

You can if you use the "mapy.cz" version of the mobile app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.mapy

I have no idea what the point of the "international" version is, as this one has English translation as well.

Words can't describe how much I love Mapy.cz (a Czech person here).

I wonder if there are other high-profile cases of a national map provider successfully competing with Google or Apple maps.

They also have a mobile app with downloadable maps. Look for Mapy.cz.

I used it throughout whole Europe, and found it superior to even local apps (map content) and OSMAnd (map rendering).

can you contribute to OSM like with maps.me ?

AFAIK to a degree.

Sadly, no. Though there are some other ways to do this (OSM Go!, StreetComplete, Vespucci)

OSMAnd allows some limited amount of contributing to OSM. But it is not a replacement for Vespucci (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci).

There is no better app like maps.me with there usability for me

I also used it,and I liked it.

I can second this recommendation. Mapy.cz is especially awesome for me as I live in the Czech Republic. It has more updated satellite imagery for the CZ than Google, and shows all the hiking trails quite nicely. And the download function works pretty painlessly.

Norway-specific, but https://norgeskart.no/ is insanely detailed for hiking, skiing, etc.

my friend was in Oslo. And he used only maps.me because the app is really reliable for a lot functions everywhere

The iOS app looks great. Thanks for the tip. It even has 3D visualisations of topography with satellite imagery.

Had tried to find similar apps for hiking recently and ended up with free versions of paid apps that were deliberately crippled, this looks perfect for what I need. Shame it’s not easier to find in App Store.

It even has a feature to find a trail looping a fixed distance from a point - I haven’t seen this on other apps and it’s really fast.

As a non-Czech but close to the border living German I can also recommend this app, my current favourite on iOS.

Ahoj!

I've always wondered, why is there such a massive difference in popularity of this app in and outside of Czechia? Do you think it's mainly - lack of focus on non-Czech user experience (poor translations, map layer looking worse, ...), lack of marketing, something else?

I guess it's a combination, the lack of marketing for sure. Perhaps it's also the algorithms fault, if only a few people (considered from a worldwide view) download it, it's not shown to others looking for map apps (it's a very crowded space app wise). Czechs are very outdoorsy people, they recommend this app to each other and so it's very popular there, but unfortunately the language barrier makes it harder spreading over borders. But these are all just wild guesses, who knows? Most people here in Germany use Komoot which gives away their maps for free on a regular basis, perhaps that's better marketing than "everything is free already"... :)

1. Mapy.cz is not marketed outside of Czechoslovakia.

2. It has its own (high quality) map data only for Czechoslovakia, outside it uses "just" OSM, although you'll get arguably superior rendering there.

Czechoslovakia is not a country and hasn’t been for 28 years.

Mapy.cz uses OSM data worldwide except Czechia, where they have their own dataset.

That's surprisingly good in Minneapolis, presumably all from the OSM data. Even does good bike directions.

Can't find it on F-droid, perhaps under a different name?

Maps (Offline OpenStreetMap maps) - https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.axet.maps

Source is hosted here:

https://gitlab.com/axet/omim/tree/HEAD

Thanks, but thats maps.me, not mapy.cz, right?

Mapy.cz is not free software.

It's a questions to our habbits but i'd like maps.me

I have been using it for a long time, while the update did not affect me in anyway

Exactly!I don't know how to live without maps.me.So many times, the app has helped me

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