Organic Maps is a free Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers | Hacker News Reader

Organic Maps is a free Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers

github.com

81 pointsthunderbong24 comments

> The project is far from achieving any sort of financial sustainability.

This is all too common for opensource projects.

Across the ecosystem it means the vast vast majority of engineering hours go into closed source projects, while the economic benefit from opensource is on-par-with, if not exceeding, closed source.

Offline maps were a game-changer for me when exploring off the beaten path and I will keep this app in mind if I ever get a newer old phone. I realize even projects-targeting-older-phones want to move on eventually, but I am mildly sad to see this require Android 5 as someone whose dedicated offline car device runs Android KitKat (4.4) :)

Granted the newest OsmAnd requires Android 6 so I'm still using the older 4.0.9 release of that application and side-loading map updates since the built-in map update UI broke:

https://f-droid.org/archive/net.osmand.plus_409.apk

  wget -mkEpnp --accept-regex 'Us_' --content-disposition -e robots=off "http://download.osmand.net/list.php"

I haven't used it but an app called Navit supports all the way back to Android Gingerbread (2.3): https://f-droid.org/packages/org.navitproject.navit/

Reposts are fine after a year or so but this project had a lot of discussion in the last year, so the current thread counts as a dupe by HN's standard. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

In 2023 Organic Maps got its first million users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38746187 - Dec 2023 (88 comments)

I took a took week trip with Organic Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37975725 - Oct 2023 (1 comment)

Organic Maps: An open-source maps app that doesn't suck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37592712 - Sept 2023 (128 comments)

Organic Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 - Sept 2023 (485 comments)

OrganicMaps is Android and iOS offline maps for travel without trackers or ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27576882 - June 2021 (116 comments)

Organicmaps: Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers, tourists, hikers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012 - June 2021 (113 comments)

Organic Maps gives me peace of mind that in case cellular networks are down, I can find my way around.

Google Maps have supported offline maps for many years.

“Transit, bicycling, or walking directions are unavailable offline.”

Source: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838

That might not be a problem in many cases, but at least Organic Maps doesn’t seem to have this limitation.

Aha, yes that would definitely tip it for Organic Maps if one isn’t driving.

Downloading larger regions on Google Maps is somewhat frustrating compared to this, though.

It's pretty frustrating in OM too, especially since the download usually fails after some time (my guess is phone goes into some power saving mode and kills the app, which it shouldn't do, but still).

I think closer to the end of last year they have released map updates roughly weekly or bi-weekly. Well, took me roughly that amount of time to update the map, so it would be downloading basically all the time, and the solution was to go to my friend's place, who actually has decent internet connection, and even then, I would have to restart the download 2-3 times.

Oh, and if the download fails and you don't push the "retry all" button, or something, you have to __manually__ tap all the tens or maybe hundreds of sub-regions which have failed, since you can't download all of them for a country with one button press after at least one succeeds.

Also, OSM uses git-like system under the hood, I guess, it's not possible to incrementally update the map since they re-package it as some kind of binary blob of sorts, but still, incremental updates would be nice.

Overall, not sure if Google maps is better or worse for this, but this is frustrating enough IMO.

This app is essential if you're travelling in places with poor reception. Especially since Apple Maps do not work offline. Before you write your response telling me I'm wrong, put your telephone in airplane mode and try searching for a place in Apple Maps. You can't, it shows you a fake search field.

Offline maps introduced in iOS17: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213829

which kind of suck, because you can’t download the whole country. It is obly possible to select rectangular area, not too big

I easily got northern New Jersey to past Washington DC in one. And you can download multiple.

You cannot search in the offline maps, only pan and zoom or show businesses nearby in pre selected categories.

Just tried this and it works for me.

That said I still love Organic Maps!

Now try searching in the Apple offline maps. It's a fake search field.

I just did and it worked.

Then it is device specific or country specific? I have a 3rd generation SE on iOS 17, with offline maps downloaded of my region. If the phone is in airplane mode, the search field in Apple Maps turns into a "Browse offline maps" field with no search function. In Organic Maps, the search function is always available (but a bit lacking).

My phone's set to en_US.

Quite possible that this is region/phone-language-specific.

Many things on iOS are these days: For example, "find things in images" (no idea how it's officially called, identifying animals and places etc.) is available in en_US and de_DE, but not de_US (which I've been using for a while).

How does it compare to OsmAnd? https://osmand.net

It's more lightweight than OsmAnd - install size & startup / rendering is quicker.

For storage that won't matter much as the maps take up way more space than the app (eg. NL map ~1 GB).

OsmAnd has many more features & settings. Some useful, but (imho) more often getting in the way. For example I've had many times where I accidentally placed a marker on a map, and there were 1001 things to do with that marker, except... simply delete.

Or (on OsmAnd) you change a setting, to find it only applies to a specific map. Again: may have its uses, but too fiddly for my taste / usage.

Otoh: OsmAnd has eg. points of interest, which can show nearest grocery stores, gas stations & so on. Veeerry useful. Organic Maps doesn't have that (yet?) afaict.

OsmAnd appears to be updated more often. Not sure I'd call that a feature, tbh.

It would be nice if apps like these could share map data. Anyone know if that's possible / easy, and if so, how?

It's much snappier and has (in my opinion) a good, modern and intuitive UI, but lacks lots of features compared to OsmAnd, for which reason it's not ready for my use cases (for example, it doesn't even support official trail hightlights/styles.

I use Organic Maps on my iPad where it is great for viewing maps. My phone has OsmAnd+ cause the extra features are useful for adventures.

Used it to do a bike trip across Korea, it worked so well ! Somehow the marker for the user seemed more precise than the ones of the other app I use (precision and direction).

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