Openstreetmap’s product fails to compete with Google Maps
bedogged.substack.com
bedogged.substack.com
Lots of apps based on OSM data do need to compete, and that is very difficult to do on a global-scale. That's why most successful OSM-based consumer applications serve a few niches incredibly well. This is not counting the dozens of companies offering OSM-based base maps for use in other, mostly non-map-related uses (such as a store locator or data visualization tool).
OSM has the advantage of time, no need to make money, and a vibrant community around it. Google has to make money directly or indirectly via Google Maps to justify continued investment; OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the data will become. As the ecosystem around OSM improves (and continues building positive feedback loops), I strongly suspect we will see a successful consumer-targeted app using OSM data, and it will be much better than the many (good) apps right now, simply because another 5-10 years of accumulated data improvements outstrip the competition's willingness to continue investing.
Caveat: I cofounded an OSM base map provider. I'm biased. :-)
Sure, that's reasonable, too. I think OSM (the project & database) wins in that situation, even if its derivations don't compete.
Again, I don't really see OSM directly competing with Google Maps (the app).
ADDED: Very nicely done. Just bought it.
As an example in 2019, we climbed on Mount Shiroyama above Kagoshima and looking at Google Maps the only way down to the city was the one we came from or some car only tunnels.On the other hand OSM listed a path with lots of stairs the locals apparently use to get up and down the mountain quickly.
If we used only Google Maps we would have to backtrack quite a bit over parts of the city we already went to but instead we arrived back in the city quickly just in time to get a tasty evening ramen. :)
Google maps may or may not be good for road travel, I don't know. I don't drive. They certainly seem to suck for public transport planning because of silently added walking times that you can't turn off, and overcomplicated 3D-chess like UI, that's hard to navigate and automatically jumps around the map for no really discernible reason.
On a recent holiday, I had to constantly switch between gmaps and one other app with better actual mapping data/display (just because one has better public transport data, and the other is better at actually being a map - having things like a scale!, or contour lines).
A lot of walking/cycling tracks were just not there in gmaps at all, nevermind the washed out display style of the map tiles and lack of clearly visually defined features you typically orient yourself by when walking, like houses, or other important things you need when planning a walk, like contour lines. Or let alone a scale for quick orientation on how far something is at the current zoom level.
All they really have going for them at this point for me is public transport data (not the UI though).
A case in point:
Google "maps": https://megous.com/dl/tmp/46f0e2aff9573bba.png
Actual maps: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/003b6d5bc0f15199.png (with forests where forests really are, lol)
It just has a cluttered and sometimes confusing interface (in my experience) which makes it difficult for me to intuitively use it for routing especially. So I typically use Apple Maps for routing—because it just works and is easy.
I remember attempting to use OSM on my phone before, and I remember being similarly confused about "which app should I use?" and the ones I tried just being fairly clunky. But I'll give maps.me a try, I can't remember if that was one of them.
e: I can see it on the f-droid site, but i can't find it in the f-droid app either:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/
metadata seems to be the same though (e.g. last update dates)
https://www.transportation.gov/gis/national-address-database...
You say "contributors need to add addresses..." but this is so unintuitive that it's simply not going to happen in over 99% of cases. I say this as someone who really believes in the cause and who therefore makes up the 1% that would be willing to spend the time improving the data. (I still buy digital music and manually add my own mood/instrument tags, if you want a 'for instance')
So why don't I? Case in point: I wanted directions to a restaurant that opened near me about 2 years ago. Couldn't find it. So I walked there, ordered my food and while waiting for it to be served, manually navigated to the map position and found the previous restaurant was still listed. As far as I could see, there was no way for me to edit the map entry within OsmAnd. As an interested party, willing to invest some initial setup and learning time, and ongoing edit time of a minute or two, I completely failed. There's nothing in the UI to even hint at how to edit the address. A 'regular user' isn't even going to bother trying.
At this rate, the world will change much faster than the OSM data.
https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation
It seems to have full coverage in my city, and drastically improves address coverage in the US
What I do is discovering roads and paths with OsmAnd, checking them with the satellite view of Google Maps and sometimes also with Street View, then placing markers in OsmAnd and following them when I'm on the new areas I still don't know.
If OSM had satellite pictures I could do without Google Maps for that. I would still use it to check the opening hours of shops.
> Creating a route from markers is a nightmare of complexity.
Is it really so complex? Globe icon or menu -> switch to cycling profile -> itinerary icon -> adjust start position and destination, markers are suggested when tapping on either. You can add more intermediate markers by tapping the "+" between source and dest. You can press any part of the map -> directions -> add as {subsequent, first intermediate, last intermediate} destination. You can also tap existing markers to do so.
In my opinion, it doesn't get much easier than this? I was so confused at google maps' interface when I was handed a phone to plan a route three days ago, it felt like it was burried down more menus, reorganizing destinations was a pain, while it's just edit -> drag and drop in OSMAnd.
For biking, also try brouter: http://brouter.de/ I know it can be used with OSMAnd, but I never spent enough time to figure it out. The web version is quite good already.
Google is a powerhouse today, but that power is built on a lot of the open source software (e.g., Android) that you claim cannot compete. I am willing to bet a significant sum of money that within the next 10 years Google (which by now forgot its "do not be evil" origins) will be successfully challenged on both the search and the mapping fronts by an upstart leveraging some open source software. My 2c.
I'll take "this kind of garbage" Every Single Day to the end of time.
The same thing could happen (and has) with proprietary software, and you are then out of luck.
With open source? Use the last known good version, fix wat you need to, even if you are the only one person on earth interested in that piece of software. Maintain it. Or just find someone else who is doing it (that's a "fork").
I've stopped using a lot of proprietary software and apps due to this, though examples are fading from my memory. On Android, I think I can name at least ES file explorer and Touchpal that went down the Adware hole.
Nowadays I only use FLOSS. Not even GAPPS. OSMAnd (which I donate to) is pretty nice and featurefull, it suits me as a maps power user, but it can be a bit daunting. There used to be a maps.me fork on F-Droid, but it was recently removed: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/7951/d...
Looks like the maps.me community is reorganizing, and hopefully it will re-emerge stronger and more resilient that it was before. Also, lessons learned with this might be useful to other projects.
> And who knows when the currently best fork will get taken over by the next wallet software huckster?
This is the reason why you should pick a project with strong guarantees: https://www.debian.org/intro/why_debian leads to https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution Only running open source software is my way of making sure I can escape lock-in and always have a way out.
The paid version of ES File Explorer is better than ever. (Though sadly neither version seems to be available on F-Droid…)
Free software is free as in freedom, not (necessarily) as in free beer. Developers have to eat too :
For instance, I bought every "simple mobile tool" app (from Tibor Kaputa) on the play store (even though I don't use Google Play, at least they are in my family library), as well as OSMAnd plus its plugins. I also bought some open source games on Steam, such as mindustry. Krita is there as well, but I prefer donating directly to KDE.
I am totally in favor of paying devs, though I generally prefer to make anonymous donations, trough liberapay (unfortunately not tax-deductible) for instance, as a way to cut the middle-man, (I tend to spend more than 600€ a year on free software donations, which is not negligible to me: almost half a monthly salary).
I don't really understand your point, to be honest: ES is "abolutely proprietary" as far as I know, so it won't be available on F-droid. I was trying to come up with examples of proprietary software that changed under me. Source access is a must for me, this is about freedom, not price. I also have trust issues with proprietary software.
It was first about the paid version of ES File Explorer being top-notch (unlike the ad-funded version), which could have mislead some people.
Perhaps I shouldn't have put it in the same message as the other point.
The point is that yeah, competing with Google in some field that isn't integral to Google's advertising business is quite possible and realistic. There are real-world examples.
2) commercial entity often develop open source software, this dychotomy is false
3) mapy.cz is strictly superior for hiking, and for most of foot navigation (at least in my opinion)
I tried out your idea -- I went to the official site, openstreetmap.org, zoomed in onto my neighborhood, and then searched for "Chinese restaurant" in the search. It returned a result for a place apparently literally named "Chinese Restaurant" in Portland, OR. That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.
The data is usually there if you live in europe, it's just hard to search. There are two related things that make it hard, bad tagging of the data and the extreme diversity of data. E.g. this winter I've used osmand to find fire pits, it was a great way to use the data but there seems to lots of ways to tag firepits so a search might not find all of them.
POI quality is the worst part of OSM, Nominatim has quite weak search and POI Nominatim search is hilariously bad.
this isnt the case with gmaps
id really like to use less google, but unfortunately gmaps doesnt appear to really have a viable alternative for my (pretty common) use case of traffic-aware city navigator
Where does OSM provide value here and how can it beat GMaps in mindshare and keep suriving?
Google maps pulled data from OSM so the government had ~zero incentives to publish to GMaps and every other mapping service directly. It’s simply more work without benefit.
PS: If I remember correct Google was on a 2 week delay for OSM data at the time, but that wasn’t considered meaningful. Also, what’s with all the hate here?
OSM data is on open license, so you can take it and adapt for your own use.
In case of errors you can fix it instead of begging Google t do this.
In some places and for some types of data it is much better than Google Maps.
Google is sole entity controlling Google Maps and may suddenly do 1400% price hike (they did one already).
If you want to do anything with data - with OSM you can, with Google not.
----
BTW, it is not necessary to beat GMaps in mindshare to flourish and grow.
As a point of interest, the American equivalent of this is called an "Authority." Examples include the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Probably, but not necessarily. The world changes with time and if OSM contributions languish, it falls out of date with the world and tangibly becomes a worse product. Certainly not inevitable, but a possibility worth noting.
It would be nice to determine some random controls points and compare lag on different mapping service. The average lag would maybe maybe drop under a year for some (and it will depend on which feature, road update faster than building if you account for gps data).
However I really don't see why OSM would necessarily lag more than Google Map or any commercial database. Because the more OSM usage is widespread (directly or through apps) the more human "field sensors" you get to update the map. Same way that I don't think many commercial encyclopedia can claim that they are more up-to-date than Wikipedia to record new facts.
This is unfortunately not a given. The world changes constantly, and things like having up to date coverage of restaurants require an immense amount of essentially ephemeral work to keep up to date.
I am not an OSM expert. It may have this already. I am all for OSM, and sincerely wish it great success.
What I do have, however, is experience in founding a worldwide, federated infrastructure that supports a fairly specialized (read: "small") demographic, but does that exceedingly well. It has become a worldwide standard, and is being taken to the next level by a team that doesn't really include me, anymore.
It has a lot of structural support for federation. The idea is to push specialization away from the core as far and as fast as possible. The core is a relatively simple, tightly-focused, ultra-high-quality database engine, with a powerful semantic API. The services are addons that were written by some really energetic and skilled people that bring far more to the table than Yours Truly. In fact, these addons are what made the system suddenly become a "must have" for everyone.
I'm assuming that OSM should have a "core mission" of geographic data, which is really just geolocation stuff. Basically, tagged locations. The tags can be used to relate the locations to external datasets.
I would then assume that things like businesses, government services, and other geotagged datasets are attached as adapters to the "core," so they can be managed by others, who are specialized.
Google does this (with arguable success) by letting businesses and individual users contribute data. I assume that it uses its own tools to aggregate and clean that data, and probably applies the data in an adapter fashion. This is what they are good at, and at vast scale and performance. Say what you will about them, but they do "big and fast" really well.
I have found, through my own experience, that if I want local data to be accurate, it is important to let locals directly supply that data.
In my experience, that started with an infrastructure designed for federation, and is realized by writing data harvesters that provide a rich, simple UI. Also, it is important to keep the core "pure." Specializations should be supplied at the adapter level; not by changing the core. For the most part, the central database schema of my system hasn't changed in ten years, but it does a lot more now, than I ever dreamed it would, back then.
But that's just me. I don't think I'm anywhere near the level that many people live at. My experience is fairly small and humble.
But effective.
In a way I got his point the OSM model can virtually store anything so it's the data provider burden to develop a glue code to interact with OSM.
However because of potential vandalism or sheer goofiness objects and ids can potentially break at anytime within OSM so writing glue code is actually not trivial.
Maybe a half way solution would be to promote generic glue code framework. I've heard about this project by a french local authority that help sync back data from OSM to your own database. Dunno if other similar projects exists.
I wrote about this in another comment in this thread (and talked about a solution to the problem), but I believe the existing OSM navigation apps that exist work well, and that the remaining friction point preventing them from competing with google in the consumer navigation market is address lookup. OsmAnd for example is very user friendly and I use it almost exclusively, but looking up addresses is the main difficulty.
It's fine for a tool, but has no chance to compete for casual end users like this.
I think the issue of a mobile application is an interesting one, and on its own is not an issue, but combined with other issues, it is.
My favorite OSM based map app was Mapzen Mobile.
The reason I think Mapzen Mobile worked better than other apps was that it generally understood the ways in which users use OSM data, which largely ties into the critiques I and others have around OSM's geolocation services. They're very Euro-centric- even in comparison to how a North American uses the same services.
But as long as map apps aren't good, then users will be forced to use proprietary maps, which feeds back into itself.
We have some amazing opportunities- more now than ever, but the OSMF needs to put conscious effort into direction, making (ie funding and overseeing development) over mechanisms to allow for regular people to have OSM as easily and as well as Google Maps.
This is no small feat, but I think that such a design could be designed- especially if it combined not only the existing mapping technologies for data (ie vector maps across the wire) but also localization of geolocation in a manner that mimiced the way geolocation data itself is crowdsourced- making it easy to build more relevant results from search and display the information people want quickly and easily.
But like the author, I am disheartened and have my doubts that the OSMF would take on such an ambitious task. I wish very much that they would!
GMaps also tries to calculate the very shortest path possible, but this often is a bad idea in India cause the roads won't be that great to go through.
Some of the things I like about OsmAnd: navigation-with-voice, speedbump warnings, sightseeing notifications, trip recording+stats, parking area finder, different profiles (walking, driving, browsing etc.) :- all this available offline :)
Many people doesn't know about OsmAnd yet, I've been using it full time now. For some places, OSM is more informative than gmaps and vice-versa. The data is increasing day by day, so it's a win-win for every OSM based app here. [OSM was used extensively during Kerala floods 2018 : https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2018_Kerala_Floods,_Indi... which prompted the government to take initiative such as Mapathon Keralam.
That maybe the reason, main roads have it, side-roads not so much. GMaps now have offline destination finder, I guess it doesn't even consider the movement data. The dependence on internet service for better route calculation is a bummer for travelling here.
Serbian OSM is generally more up to date and more correct than Google Maps.
I believe that one of the approaches has led to people who are more invested in the result and you can guess which one is that.
But to be honest, I find OsmNav better than Google Maps for in car navigation, though they both suck. Perhaps Google Maps is not bad when you can voice control it, but you can't in Serbian.
Could you expand on this? When you say "ways in which users use OSM data", do you mean "ways in which American users use OSM data"? What is wrong with OSM's geolocation services? What even are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM was just a map! What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric?
They come up with irrelevant results or no results at all. I talked about this in more detail in "Why OSM is in serious trouble".
> What even are OSM's geolocation services - i thought OSM was just a map!
OSM isn't a map, it's a geographic database.
By OSM's geolocation services, I mean Nominatim. Pelias gave me better results but it's gone AFAIK.
> What doesn it mean for them to be Euro-centric?
People search for things differently in Europe than they do in the US.
As a small example, I will regularly search for intersections, but I've been told Europeans don't often do that.
After Mapzen shut down a co-worker and I founded Geocode Earth(https://geocode.earth/) to continue working on the Pelias project, funded by consulting and, primarily, a SaaS much like Mapzen Search.
Over the past 3 years the project has improved quite a bit, and Geocode Earth has had solid growth (50% SaaS revenue in 2020). We've been fully bootstrapped this whole time and plan on continuing this well...indefinitely!
In fact, intersection support is already present in Pelias and will be rolling out to Geocode Earth soon :)
What are the hardware requirements/cost for a basic deployment of Pelias?
I _think_ you're talking about Eraser Map(https://github.com/mapzen/eraser-map) right?
It was awesome! It's the closest I know of to "Google Maps, but open source and based on open data". It was an app built for _end users_, not OSM editors. And it worked pretty darn well. When it didn't, any problems could (at least theoretically) be addressed with improvements to OSM data or the Mapzen open-source projects.
There was a team of at least two people working on it full time, plus lots of work on the design, product, and integration with geocoding, routing, transit etc. The multi-modal (switching from walking to transit to car, etc) transit directions were particularly awesome.
I used it as my daily driver for much of my navigation around NYC, and as time went on only had to fall back to Google Maps maybe 25% of the time, usually for missing POI data.
Unfortunately I think it's one of the few Mapzen projects that hasn't seen new life after the company shut down, and like you said it would take quite a bit of work (read: money) to keep it going. It might be possible with some work to find grant money through a couple organizations. The OSMF has done some awesome work lately with the micro-grants, but this would definitely be a level we haven't seen (yet).
From his twitter it appears that the author is a Facebook employee. Now working (I guess) on Facebook Maps and (probably) on the Mapillary product. The somewhat surprising fact to many is that OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook. If Facebook disappeared, OSM would continue. Think about that again, OSM does not need the participation of any large corporate body to continue. The editors of OpenStreetMap welcome big corporate users of the database but they don't actually seek out or need huge corporate users. Don't get me wrong - OSM editors love that Facebook and Apple use and contribute, there's lots of reasons to praise this. It's like a wikipedia editor who hears that teachers are using their articles in all the nations schools - they are honoured and welcome it, but if the teachers stopped one day the wikipedia editor would still keep on writing those articles!
So, OpenStreetMap does not need Facebook or Apple. OpenStreetMap does not need to compete or be a product. Seems to me that I would view that as a big risk for Apple and Facebook. So, lets imagine how two of the FAANG could protect their investments and reduce risks. Would the changes that OpenStreetMap would need to make to be a product and to compete with Google Maps reduce such risk?
It seems to me that there might possibly be a push from the FAANG users of OSM to make it into a product, to grow, to be a tech organisation with actual employees, a CEO, a structure, an organisation that is familiar to many in tech and their lawyers, a business one can do business with, create contracts with, make NDAs to, employee people in, write deals with, have a say in the direction of and invest actual money in. Currently there is none of that and I think that might be worrying to FAANG.
Even if there's no conscious push from these huge corporations its more probable and it makes more sense to someone with a Silicon Valley mindset that any tech organisation look, behave, and be organised as every other successful tech organisation. It's therefore logical from multiple directions to want OSM to change to become a product company. I would argue that OSM is successful exactly because it is not like a tech organisation.
It has much more granular data that is especially useful for outdoor activities. You can tell roads from trails from tracks, and all are there. In many places, everything is mapped down to benches and signage. Google Maps shows you a white line, and it's up to you to find out whether your vehicle fits on it. This bit me a few times.
When I was in Central Asia, I used it to find gas stations and ATMs that weren't on Google Maps. I mapped a dozen of them myself, and added information about the fuel octane they had. It's also how I found accommodation and restaurants that wouldn't be listed on Google Maps.
Google Maps covers people living in cities rather well, but if your use case isn't "take the train to a nice restaurant", OSM has a lot more to offer.
Google Maps (or its local competitors) are great for spatial searches (ATMs in the area, shops in the area) and routing.
Finally, Wikimapia is great for virtual urban exploration. If you saw an abandoned building or warehouse, or found a suspicious bald spot in the middle of the forest when using OSM or Google Maps, the best place to learn about it is Wikimapia.
Highly recommended for looking around when you move to a new neighbourhood or city... I would say tourism, but that is NaT (not a thing) right now.
When you actually want to use it as a map in its own right, it's absolutely infuriating, though – forests disappear when you zoom in, the distinction between built-up areas and surrounding open space does so likewise, so all you're left with is lots of faint white streets on a light grey background with some random green spaced dotted around.
You can submit corrections for some info (like place details) to Apple and Google and they'll change within 24-48 hours. If you update OSM, however, it'll take you an unknown amount of time. Some iOS apps proudly champion being able to update OSM data monthly -- but that's still huge compared to basically over a weekend.
So the delays are on the data consumer side. A lot of that ends up being QA, because big companies don't want to publish vandalism. Of course, when they accidentally do publish vandalism, their slower update pace becomes a weakness.
https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2018/08/30/osm-condemns-vanda...
OSM had the vandalism removed in a couple hours. A few weeks later, the QA mistakenly let the vandalism through and it wasn't corrected until it got quite a lot of attention.
Maybe it's because I only infrequently bother to submit corrections to Google Maps, but that certainly wasn't my experience – a number of changes all took weeks to months to resolve and sometimes required multiple attempts on top.
Never, I think. Apple Maps doesn't import from OSM.
Also you're pretty lucky if your suggestions to Google or Apple are taken into account quickly. Most times they can linger for months or even years, and even get randomly refused or ignored. At least in OSM you can fix the map directly.
AFAIK, the spiritual successor to Maps.me is Guru Maps.
But if you can live with the complexity of OsmAnd UI, just get it from F-Droid to avoid the 5-maps limit imposed by the Google Play version.
I would assume it would take less than a week even on a normal modern PC.
If you need to do some more processing per region, that could be more involved but still doable. You can also do a lot of caching and prioritization or even diff updates possibly so you might not have to fully reprocess whole regions.
- 10x better in map data and aesthetics (https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8929744&y=50.0331743&z=14... vs https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0297578,13.8901237,13z)
- Better in app UX and functionality (tracker, offline, weather on a route, etc.).
- Substantially worse at places data, especially user reviews and photos - when I'm choosing a restaurant, I use Google Maps.
- Worse at search.
I've seen arguments about removing unnecessary information and decluttering the map. But very often forests, for example, have very distinctive shapes, which helps immensely to intuitively recognize locations with a quick glance.
I've found that OsmAnd for street navigation works as well as and in some cases better than Google, particularly semi rural areas. The big sticking point with using OSM for car navigation (the biggest use case for any map framework and/or app) is address lookup. Usually Nominatim is used, and particularly in the US it doesn't give you any address data, only cross streets, so navigating to a place you have no idea where it is means you're going to use Google or something else to find it, and then use OSM to navigate out of principle. This is a major roadblock, if you've got to use Google to find out where it is, you'll normally just use it to navigate as well.
I have a solution to this problem, and that is to source address data from openaddresses.io (a collaborative, open source geocoding project) for address lookup. It will require a bit of work to do, specifically on Android, I will have to build an address lookup backend alternative to Nominatim that sources address data from openaddresses.io, which requires account registration to download geocoding data, which means that it will probably require local storage and lookup of data. Once this exists though (and I have not started building it, I tell myself I will but I have other things going on) you've essentially eliminated the big friction point with OSM and it becomes a viable competitor to proprietary navigation in cars or otherwise on roadways. I think if this were built, and the word got out, it would kill the Google Maps monopoly over consumer use, at least with the "sick of google" demographic, which is sizeable.
Do you know a lot about this project?
The whole process worked flawlessly, i can recommend it.
The only problem is that there seems to be not a lot of community coordination, so I'm not sure which data types I should focus on.
> The only problem is that there seems to be not a lot of community coordination, so I'm not sure which data types I should focus on.
So you want to know how data contributed with SC is actually used? Address data and road names are obviously heavily used, surface data is used for routing, opening hours is shown in multiple places showing shop data from OSM.
https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master... has list of quests in terms of their priority with some mentions in comments with some examples this data is used.
It's a very easy quest so I complete it when I'm checking the location anyway, but I do find it to be quite a bit less useful than, say, whether a road is lit, which I have been tagging near me because my girlfriend mentioned that she was having trouble planning runs because she doesn't know which streets are lit. The lit tag is prioritized below surface data, and road type isn't a quest at all.
(Ties into a book I'm reading: invisible women. We're not purposefully ignoring them, but men developed the app and we are much less likely to care whether a road is lit when going out after dark. I don't actually know why prioritization was set this way, just that I wouldn't be surprised if this bias subconsciously played into it, or perhaps is the reason why there are so few apps that display it.)
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness
Also useful if your vehicle is capable of light offroad but not heavy offroad. After having a few fright down a dirt road in a relatively light duty off-road vehicle, I went back and made it "very horrible" in OSM.
And yes, in some areas all roads are asphalt ones. But it is basically impossible to guess which places and where is border of "everything is asphalt here" area.
So this quest is asked everywhere - it is not easy to distinguish "obviously asphalt" from "unsurveyed". And tagging at least some surface values in given area makes easier to be certain about what is obvious in a given location.
The reason I recommend starting with your own priorities, is that this (when done by enough people) adds what is really being used the most by everyone.
Mind that the existence of data also creates purposes for it. Let's say that features for blind people are mapped very well in your area and there is a developer involved with that community, s/he could create software to make use of it. For this example, StreetComplete asks for things like tactile paving at bus stops and crossings and auditory signals at traffic lights.
One thing I don't see the use of at all but that is a ton of work in most areas is the "building kind" and "number of levels for this building". One could color-code the building type or render an approximate height for each building on 3d maps, but really, most maps don't do either of this, and these two quests are far more work than the dozens of other quests combined.
I use OSM through Komoot for hiking, biking, walking. Because every tiny trail is in there and Google Maps is lacking this. I don’t use OSM directly, because Komoot offers additional data on top of OSM such as photos, trails etc.
I wonder why the author doesn’t include the simple fact in the analysis that Google Maps doesn’t win because of its map data, but because of the additional data it provides and OSM is one layer below. It’s not an equal comparison.
But Google Maps are the worst maps I ever had to use so I don't even have them installed. Fortunately there is quite a number of alternatives. In some countries there even are domestic competitors which usually are guaranteed to be much better than any global-scale map providers.
Try googling anything that can be put on a map. Observe the Google Map popping up.
I mean, it makes sense to integrate it, but I can also see how the ubiquitous Google Search now leads to ubiquitous Google Map use. Every business wants to be in the search results (free advertising) and so Google Maps has all the businesses², plus a consistently decent base layer of other data in most rich countries, making app developers (almost invariably also from rich countries) use that instead of a cheaper and in many (but not all) regards better alternative.
Not that I'm not also from one of the richest countries in this world, I just happen to contribute to OSM and so know more about its coverage than the average developer would.
² OSM is less complete and more outdated for this specific kind of data, in contrast to e.g. roads, trails, landcover, power grids, and most other geospatial data.
I live in a fairly rich country but still hate Google Maps. Fortunately there are alternatives which are better in every aspect (including having all the local businesses, attractions and conveniences listed + able to tell you when to take a bus to get anywhere).
This not needed. You can use iD (default in-browser editor) without direct tag use.
On Android you can use StreetComplete that has no exposure to tags or tagging schemes and requires 0 OSM-specific knowledge to use (except creating OSM user account).
> OSM:s biggest problem seems to be that it offers a product — a map database — that very few people need, and even fewer people can use
Most people use it indirectly, that is not some fundamental problem.
That was the point with OSM from the start, and the author is clearly missing it.
I know Google Maps can download map sections ahead of time but I go to a lot of places with no mobile phone service and if I forgot to download maps ahead of time I don't worry about it. I just open up Maps.me and it has all the trails, roads, and usually the parking lots.
For many uses it is superior to Google Maps. I am glad I have both.
(Similar to how my school emailed everyone, every year about how generously Microsoft gives us their Office suite for only 40 euros or something, failing to mention that LibreOffice works perfectly fine --if you don't mind the design-- and is of course completely free. Why not encourage people to donate 40 euros every 5 years to LibreOffice instead, or alongside?)
Didn't end up doing it, also because there just isn't an easy editor that businesses would use. I would make one, but then how would I make them aware of this? OSM in general and such an editor in particular? It's just such an uphill battle when everyone uses Google Search, businesses can get free advertising by putting themselves on Google Maps (that map shows up when you look for a local business or category of businesses), and Google spends a boatload of money on driving cars around and getting more business owners on board as well.
(It creates a note rather than directly adding the business to OSM)
Easy, uninstall it and use only their web version, which is hideous in mobile.
It's like : what kind of developer do you think contributes more to Linux : one that is using it (almost) exclusively, or one that runs back to Windows/MacOS every time he stumbles on some half-baked or missing feature ?
Blatant self-promotion: my company (https://stadiamaps.com) is trying to fix this problem (I think we have in many ways). I strongly believe you shouldn't have to stand up your own tile hosting infra just to deploy a map without paying $$$ / month. If you want to though, do it! It'll teach you a lot.
One such renderer available via Qt/QML:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/location-plugin-mapboxgl.html
Alternatively you can have a local daemon running that does the tile rendering on your device from offline data packs. This way even "legacy" apps requiring simple bitmap tiles will work without (major) changes. One such project providing this (among other APIs) is OSM Scout Server:
Maps.me decided it would be a good idea to cut through the village as its main street connected two points on the bending highway like a chord. Yes, in terms of distance it was shorter, if you do not account for the allowed speed limit and conditions. I spent 10 minutes slowly crawling through the village trying not to kill any chickens. I was also low on gas and had barely enough to get to the next gas station, so I was not amused.
Since then I always triple-check maps.me routes, looking at the whole route and checking it against google maps if I have a chance.
To be fair, it has probably more to do with maps.me routing algorithm than OSM data, but it is hard to know.
The OSM Foundation and general leadership (both official and unofficial) are people who sell these services (map rendering and geolocation) and appear blind to the need for a dedicated effort to make it better. They instead rely on work done a decade ago, proprietary work done by companies or else work done by volunteers without coordination.
Because of this, the situation persists and gets worse over time.
But sure, let's focus on one person.
I don't feel angry, I feel frustrated that this keeps happening and sad for you that you are unable to simply move on.
I'm sad that you see my attempt to improve OSM, as some kind of personal affront. It's genuinely sad that you feel that way- that you don't see that I want to see OSM succeed and see obstacles in its way, namely the old boy's network that underlies the project.
You're an extremely talented programmer and you can be a very charming man- I'm not sure why you've chosen to engage in this little vendetta. It serves neither of us.
If you want to have an actual conversation, feel free to reach out- my door is open. Otherwise, please stop with this behavior.
How does OSM compete with that in a centralized way? I don't think it can. OSM competes by decentralization and millions of individual contributions.
I don't think hiring a few people will move the needle much. I'd be grateful to be wrong, though!
That is one way Waze started to get a leg up on Google Maps, it’s experience was creating a more meaningful experience for the average driver...and as a result, data.
Welcoming any suggestions for map websites with basic functionality like OSM, but without relying on spying eyes.
But also the article is weirdly skeptical:
> no map was accessible without downloading the region
Google could mandate this as well... maybe file a feature request with the developers of the app you were using (maps.me, unaffiliated with OSM)?
> ["]What map is this? Where can we see it?["] It’s a bit easier to explain such an impact if you contribute to something like Linux
Erm, yeah try that with my parents (only ever heard of Linux because of me) or my grandparents. They have zero trouble understanding the concept of a map. Moreover, I was over at my grandma recently and she doesn't even know what a website is, not even conceptually. She doesn't use the internet at all. Explaining how I can contribute to a map, any map, digitally, is a challenge.
So I asked if she had a map of the area. She pulls one out that she got from the municipality. I point at a parking lot: I drew that lot.
I take out my phone, pull op the OSM website, and show the history view for the object. "Added by [me] 4 years ago".
Ooooh how what so cool -- really, /you/ drew that? She was flabbergasted and amazed.
Compared to the Linux kernel... I'm not convinced the concept of a kernel would be easier to frankly almost anyone, let alone non-techies. Why bother when there is Windows and macOS? That's not even a (near) monopoly like Google has! Even many tech people barely know what a kernel is, and I don't mean in casual use (I call my OS "Linux" all the time) but also in understanding. When someone asked about killing PID 1 for some reason, I said that you'd be left with just a kernel if anything. They assumed that means you get a bash shell as only thing on the screen, and this person is absolutely not unfamiliar with Linux-based OSes in general.
> I can tell people that they’ve seen this map that us OSM contributors produce when they use Facebook apps. Many people find that acceptable, acknowledging our painstaking map editing is relevant.
Saying "it's used here" doesn't give much perspective as to why this "painstaking" map editing (to me it's enjoyable) is useful. I don't do it just because someone (especially Facebook) uses it. They could very well use Google's expensive data if OSM did not exist.
The reason is that Google spends a billion every year to update their map, lets people view it but only in ways they like, and wins back the money by using your data. It's not open for purposes that don't serve the ad market like researchers, and some people would frankly prefer an alternative to needing Google for everything. That's the reason why people contribute to OSM (aside from it being a strangely enjoyable hobby).
In my experience that's something that Google Maps does very well.
Traffic data needs fully automatic data collection that requires support from map data (and OSM can help here).
I bought it in the app store and I'm grandfathered in. Feels good! :)
Right now, if I want to use OSM on my iPhone and I search "OpenStreetMap" in the App Store I get various applications under various, unknown names. The closest to an "official" name would be OSMaps, but it turns out even that one isn't official and has no navigation capabilities.
On Android, I don't have a phone to test with but seems like the most popular option appears to be OsmAnd. Again, not only is the name cryptic but doesn't imply anything unless you're already familiar with OSM. "Google Maps", "Apple Maps", etc in contrast automatically imply what the app is for even if you've never heard of the brand itself.
If OSM wants to succeed in the consumer space, they need to release an official, "reference implementation" of a mobile client with an UI comparable to the competition that a layman can understand and use even if they have no idea what OSM is nor are interested in contributing.
What I would love to see would be an app allowing me to quickly contribute to OSM, e.g. fix things, add street names or POIs, etc.
For example resurvey of old opening hours data, recent version (v28.0) added also ability to directly handle shop that is gone and replaced by another (it may not be released for you, especially if you use F-Droid). See https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/releases/ta... for details.
For full scale editing on Android see Vespucci.
Also a big thanks to you for your work on this app, it makes editing OSM super easy on the go, and gave me something to do on my walks during the lockdowns :)
Google Maps used to be great - far better than Map Quest. Waze was pretty bad. Apple was initially bad. Open Street Maps was pretty good except they thought my driveway was a road.
In the past year Google got pretty bad. Apple became awesome. About a year ago Open Street Maps improved.
Then this morning I checked Open Street Maps and it now has the exact same bug that has irritated me with Google!
I suspect there is some bad code sharing between OSM and Google.
Details - if your physical address is in a different county than your postal office it confuses the heck out of Google. OSM used to handle this just fine, but not now.
Accuracy counts more than anything else!
I used the OSM web page.
Just type in the address with zip code, and it takes you to a completely different different zip code. This is a relatively new bug.
I find it interesting that I am down voted by 4 points. The OSM fans must not understand the value of user testing. Maybe it is the google fans who don't understand user testing.
The idea is that this database can be used by anyone, e.g. OsmAnd, the openstreetmap.org homepage, Facebook, Apple Maps, Mapbox, GraphHopper, etc. provide various services on top of it. Nominatim, the component you're having trouble with, is indeed fairly picky in its input.
But do mind that you're comparing this to Google, the company on this planet that is the undisputed king of search. I'm not surprised their search function works better than this open source project using an open source set of data. For what it's worth, if you stick to common address formats and don't put in abbreviations like a country-specific postal code (it doesn't look for results near you, it just searches the planet for what you typed; it has no knowledge of where in the world you are as it doesn't track you -- yeah, maybe it should), then it works fine, or at least as reliable as the underlying data is.
I think there was wishful thinking since many of the OSM maintainers are mountain bikers and the Santa Cruz mountains has some desirable mountain biking paths. The back part of our property is on The Soquel Demonstration Forest which has an awesome mountain biking path.
They were pretty good about fixing the issue when I pointed it out.
You could literally fix this issue yourself in under 5 minutes, and that includes the time to set up an account.
But in this case, it sounds like the issue is that a private driveway is mis-labelled as a public route. This sort of thing is trivial to fix in OSM.
It is possible that both suffer from incorrect entries in the official database or some insane addressing scheme that requires special handling.
Chance that Google Maps copied some buggy code from one of OSM software seems unlikely.
And chances that OSM software copied GMaps code is even lower.