I ask because I have tried both and neither consistently find destinations I need, and when they do, they don’t route me there in the fastest or most efficient way possible. My first experience with Organic Maps, for instance, tried to turn what was usually a 4 hour drive into a nearly 6 hour drive. I used Google Maps to get there instead.
Google Maps is still the best navigation I’ve used, followed closely by Magic Earth, which gets the job done but still isn’t all that great. I find myself resorting to Google Maps 9 times out of 10 because even Magic Earth will add 15-30 minutes to any trip. Even when I do use Magic Earth, I have to double-check it against Google’s navigation just to make sure I’m not wasting any extra time or gas money on the road.
Also, a little gripe with OSMAnd that probably isn’t too big of a deal, but OSMAnd can’t find anything unless I download my state map. It tells me “nothing found within 5 miles” and gives me the option to expand the radius. But at 10, 15, 20, all the way up to 50 miles, it won’t find I’m looking for. Like I said, not too big a deal since downloading the map of my state solves this issue, but it’s still inconvenient and kind of a waste of internal storage space given that other apps can navigate successfully using online maps.
I’m wondering how any of you get by using OSMAnd / Organic Maps as I’ve seen people post on Lemmy that they do. Am I just missing something? Or are these apps really as bad as I think they are?
Edit: I should specify that I use navigation mainly for driving and Olive in the US. Seems like people biking / hiking in the EU have a bit of an easier time with some of these apps
I’m using organic maps almost every day
Usually if i’m not in a rush, and i’m not looking for a place that is definitely not on organic maps
And yes, hiking, long trips, organic map works really great
Also sometimes it’s possible to share a link from gmapsVW to organic, but it’s devastating to find out that this time it got the location wrong
For me it’s at its best when using it offline and without decent phone signal. I mostly use it off the beaten track, cycling, hiking and when needing to understand the terrain. I wouldn’t use it as a substitute for Google maps or Waze though.
Same, would love to switch completely to an OSM based app. But my main use case currently is for hiking, the trails are usually better, and for situations where I have poor cell reception.
I’ve had the exact same experience. The maps are great but the navigation (at least by car) is just not there yet. I’ve tried it a bunch of times and after getting sent off the highway and along dirt roads in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason I gave up on it.
There are some options in the settings screen which allow you to avoid unpaved/4wd/toll roads when calculating nav routes. You can also specify your car’s dimension and weight to tune it even further.
Well this hasn’t happened to me yet. The lack of real time traffic warnings is a bit annoying tho.
It just doesn’t have the data to find every place you want to find. Didn’t use it for driving directions, but walking directions in South Korea were excellent. Google doesn’t have them!
I use Organic Maps all the time with no issues, I use Gmaps WV to find places if they arent on openstreetmap
I didn’t know about GMaps WV, thanks for sharing.
Osmand works great for me, at least for bike navigation. Not driving yet so can’t comment on how good that aspect is. Google maps has a few paths & routes in my area (village) either unmapped or incorrectly mapped, and i’m not too fond of Google anyway.
Personally I was after offline maps for my device to begin with, so for my use case Osmand is absolutely amazing
I have not used either for cars but I have tried both for driving bicycles. The thing with open street map is that they have a lot more of the small streets that bikes can go on but cars can’t. In my experience google maps usually wants me to drive my bike right on some huge multi-lane car road for 3 hours and totally ignores the bike path right next to it. When I went on a 1 month bicycling trip I tried both but found that OSMAnd had vastly better suited roads. Some of the tiniest tiny roads it sent me on were some of the most memorable of the whole journey. Sometimes the path in OSMAnd will just be a dirt path half a meter wide and I love that. I thought many times who on earth even added all these roads! I’m so thankful for every local nerd who added every single dirt road in his neighborhood on there. Simply amazing sometimes. But yeah it doesn’t work at all if you don’t download the map that’s true. Also I really can’t answer for navigating by car.
in France, we’ve been using it for years now and it works fine
its efficiency may depend on the number of volunteers that map a country and France seems to be in top 3. That may explain why it works here
I used it on a roadtrip around Utah. There aren’t too many options for roads in the southern part so as long as it takes me home it’s doing its job.
@eddie_of_ny MagicEarth is superior from my tests. Better in all regards in terms of navigation: from the UI to the maps, voices, detection of radar, heads up when you speed up too much. Overall I managed to switch to it after so many years of being unable to find a Google Maps alternative. But truth is if you want to find an exact place to go, and then maybe parking and what not, google maps is still far superior. Has a lot of info about a lot of places. But in terms of navigation MagicEarth is superior in my view.
Is Magic Earth for android only available through the play store?
Yes, Magic Earth is not Open Source
@uninvitedguest Unfortunately…
Agree Magicearth not so accurate on traffic info. But my biggest problem with Google is that it focuses so much on commercial info that takes most of the map’s real estate (shops, stores, malls, etc) ,which it’s not usually what I’m looking for, that it causes some kind of allergic reaction.
Magic is great, better than Google, for navigation and clarity in directions and graphically much more appropriate to driving.
I can confirm the experiences of the OP. As for OSMAnd, see my response to the post, which i am writing next.
Yes i love magic earth but almost non existence of traffic data makes it useless in big cities
Turn-to-turn driving is one of the few things I use a closed app for. Specifically, Here maps which at least it’s not by Google.
I’ve heard OpenStreetMap isn’t that good in the US because there’s just not enough volunteers there. In germany, however, it’s more up to date than Google Maps from my experience, aside from stores and the like. Routes on Organic Maps are the same as on Google Maps here.
But the navigation experience is dogshit!
wdym exactly?
I use it daily for travel by bike or foot (kombined with BRouter). And its awsome!
Experiance by car is a bit mixed tho. (EU-Germany)
Not great for car navigation, I use Osmand 100% for bike navigation and for hiking
I’ve used organic maps for a while but had a problem in a trip I had to arrive on time and there was a change in the road that wasn’t in open street maps that almost caused me losing a test I had so when I really need to make it I choose Waze lately. And I live in a big city where traffic info is a must so I’m using less of organic maps because of that…Waze gets me off heavy traffic while organic maps doesn’t show arriving time correctly so…great alternative but not that reliable about traffic info depending on your needs
