Google Maps has pretty good support for offline maps. Select rectangular area, download, it expires after year. I am in Europe, maybe you have different copyright on data?
Apple Maps is even worse because it has no offline mode at all.
In any case, before traveling I try to download the offline maps in HERE wego too.
But the fact that I can download a map that has all of New York City, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware, and sizable chunks of 4 other states in that area for 890 MB is pretty awesome. Especially when it comes with full driving directions, business information including hours and the search capabilities? And it'll keep it up to date periodically? I'll take that win.
All of that impossible if I didn’t have signal to start the walking route.
I definitely can not do this with Google Maps.
Too bad their navigation does not care about traffic outside of Czechia. You can still use them for directions in a car, but no traffic jam avoidance.
This is the first come I come across Organic Maps but I do use OSMAnd. I'm wondering how the two compare and would love to hear more about the use cases you have for each of them.
OSMand is slightly too powerful for everyday use, organic maps is the perfect good-enough, less-is-better example.
Those were a few differences I noticed.
Moving the map is much faster in OM than in OSMAnd. I hope that OSMAnd study the code of OM.
The visualization in OM is much nicer. Another thing to copy.
OM is extremely better at displaying POIs and their information. Again, copy it.
Despite the claims it seems that OM does not show walking and cycling routes. OSMAnd shows them with their name, that matches the one you see on signposts along the routes.
OM does not seem to have a way to record a route and save it as gpx. OSMAnd does that.
OM does not seem to have a way to place markers on the map. I use them to plan new routes for biking, then I follow the markers. Navigation would bring me where it wants to go through, not where I want to.
OM is less than half the size of OSMAnd but it's still 58 MB. I wonder why these mapping apps must be so large.
Having to dowload all the maps again is very bad. I wish there is a way to share them among apps but I think that Android makes it impossible, unless we want to use a folder on an external storage (SD card) or root the phone or whatever.
I'll keep using OSMAnd because of recording, markers and routes. However I might recommend OM to friends that only need a replacement for Google Maps.
My main issue is that there should be a way to say, “Keep this journey on screen until I explicitly delete it, with a confirmation model.” I’m assuming that’s what “Pin it” is meant to do, but in practice, I occasionally see the path I last searched when I reopen my phone and map; I never see a pinned journey again if anything happens: rotate the phone, a quick switch to another app, the screen goes dark…