Project for people leaving Google Maps.

All of you are invited on !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml
Also checkout the many editing tools, such as https://mapcomplete.org, https://streetcomplete.app,...
- I successfully used Every Door during my holidays to contribute
  
  There’s a small learning curve I wish some bothered to understand first. Does this app help? The part of this I don’t like is vacationers leaving useless names like ‘Mango lady’, ‘many street vendors’ for a block, or ‘local restaurant’ since they can’t read the sign as opposed marking up the cuisine type, maybe adding an English description, & leaving the name blank. Nobody expects uploads to be perfect but Bangkok is littered with this noise that makes it hard to follow or find things.
  
  Every Door
  thank you for sharing, definitely the easiest for Android from my research :-)
  Note: there is a comparison of editor apps here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_editors
- Thank you for sharing the links!

the biggest problem I have with switching is that Google Maps is a business directory. open street maps is empty where i live. it works okay for navigation, but not so much for finding a coffee.
- there are ways to make it easier; it's been gamified:
  https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
  Available on FDROID.
  When my partner stops to play pokemon go, I complete some Open Street Map info quests...
  
  Street Complete is a great app for quests regarding existing features, but also consider the feature might not exist at all yet in OSM.
  Map Complete is great for adding new features. It also asks a bunch of optional simple questions about the feature which gets converted into the relevant OSM tags. It's browser based but you can just add a shortcut to your home screen to have it quickly accessible.
  
  I've just installed this now, thanks for the tip!
  So many quests right on my street!
- Be the change your want to see in the world https://droidify.eu.org/app/?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete&repo_address=https://f-droid.org/archive
  
  It says “page not found”, maybe because I'm not in EU.
  
  Link to fdroid next time
- As many have already told you, you can contribute to OSM, I have put in it almost all the establishments in my area (Not at Big area but...). Although soon I have to update them
  
  im on board with the idea in general, but im not going to do this. it would be an endless effort to the benefit of almost nobody. places go up and down so fast here that google maps is often out of date too. it's filled with stale information and im flagging missing places constantly. every digital community in this country is a garbage pile.
  the ride share apps here do use open street maps though, and im making corrections to building addresses when i find something isn't right. it's great.
- You can contribute them!
  There's a pretty barebones editor in Organic Maps, but you can also check out Street Complete and Every door (more advanced and less user friendly, though insanely efficient)
  
  I use Vespucci, it's advanced but still pretty easy if you just want to do basic editing. https://vespucci.io/
  P.s. how do you link to an app on fdroid?
- Same issue here. I really like their maps in general, but my local area in OSM is about a decade out of date
  
  Yeah, it's interesting to look through the edit history over the years. With StreetComplete I recently fixed ~8 stores that were many years out of date, during an hour walk.
  It's fun to find a real hole-in-the-wall that even google maps doesn't have.
- I keep businesses in my area up-to-date, doesn't take much time at all.
- That kind of contribution seems like a lower level of effort than making changes to source code.
  
  And there are apps that make it very very easy and fun. Check out street complete.
- I felt the same however Organic Maps did have many businesses. And with Street Complete I can correct any errors when I visit.
  It may simply be my area, but I so recommend organic maps over Osmand for business and POI lookups
- Yeah trying to find anything on any of the competing apps is basically impossible. I mean ffs OSMand literally couldn't do address lookup!
  
  I just recently learned this.
  For OsmAnd, go to search, then the categories tab, and then hit "Online Search".
  Voila, address lookup.
  
  I have found Organic Map's search to be far better than OSMand. OSMand has far more features though.
- i think openstreetmaps only works in big countries honestly
  
  What does the size of the country have to do with it? Which good big and bad small countries are you talking about?
- You can add the POIs and fill the gaps!
  
  And then in the web app, you need to do this complicated hold-LMB-then-select-from-list to select something, making just browsing really difficult.
  Or is there a better way of doing that? I lack a good way to just browse Openstreetmap.

Organic Maps was put back onto the Play Store the next day day: https://organicmaps.app/news/2024-08-18/good-news-organic-maps-appeared-again-in-the-google-play-store/
- Yeah but it demonstrates googles unwillingness to cooperate and give fair warnings.

You seem pretty active with OSM, so I'll propose this here since I don't have time to make it.
OSM is very, very popular with hikers and cyclists, and I'd argue rhey drive a lot of it's use, especially via third-party systems. However, it's one failing is "gravel" roads. While they support many different gravel road types, they admit on their Wiki that use of the proper terms is low.
Given the heavy use of Garmin devices, especially among gravel cyclists, mountain bikers, and bikepackers, where terrain definition is important, it would be outstanding to have an app in the Garmin store for Edge devices that could report the exact terrain type (compacted, dirt, etc) with a button mash as you ride it.
- Check out StreetComplete (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete)
  It does more than just road surface type, and incorporates location-based OSM editing in a very user-friendly way!
  
  F-Droid link: StreetComplete (OpenStreetMap surveyor app) https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/
  
  Yea, I've used that, but it's a phone app. Riders need a one-touch solution on Garmin (or other bike computers, but Garmin dominates the market right now).
- I will add as a narrowboater.
  I found towpaths also have this issue with definition of surface.
  I am legally blind. (Some vision but bad)
  I have a few times tried to add more ditail to areas of towpath that will help the others like me know what to expect before mooring.
  Seems anything that improves this will help in your issues as well.
- Not sure if you're the one to ask, but are there any good alternatives to Strava built on OSM? I don't need all the fitness analysis and social features, I just want to track my walk route and get basic info like miles traveled, elevation change, average speed, etc
  
  So for the tracking and planning part, you could use OSMAnd. It's UI is a bit confusing but it does work welll. My typical setup is:
  Plan route in OSMAnd
  Record route with a garmin
  Upload GPX to self-hosted Fittrackee or Wanderer
  However you may be asking for something more like RideWithGPS.com?

OrganicMaps is amazing. Strong recommend to everyone. I only recently found out about it.
- Any details on why it's amazing? What does it do or doesn't?
  
  It has the map corpus from OpenStreetMap, so one of the best in the world
  It works offline - just download the desired maps onto the device
  That makes it really, really fast. Google Maps is slower
  You can also use it in areas with bad reception. I'm using it for hiking in the woods where there is no cell phone connection available
  I really like the UI - they are f.e. better at displaying house numbers and street names than Google.
  No ads
  
  It shows me where the speed cameras are :)
- Same, I have recently installed LineageOS on my phone and was looking for various replacements for Goggle apps. What I really like about OrganicMaps is that it downloads the maps locally, so you can view it even if you aren't connected to the internet.
  
  google maps can do that too though

Openstreetmaps has 8.75% of the contributors Google Maps has.
Organic Maps has 1% the user base Google Maps has.
- The difficulty is asking people to get started with this. People want to get to work/navigate as quickly as possible to where they need to be, they don't want to be figuring it out. Social media can be janky and you'll be patient, but if you're late for something because you're struggling to adjust to an app you're more likely to go back to Google/Apple Maps
  
  Agreed! I got one for that too:
  Lemmy vs Reddit
  Monthly Users (0.004%) 44k vs 1.2b
- And its still better :)
- So we work harder
  
  I just did 30 minutes of contributing to the osm database.
- So? Every platform starts at 0%.
  
  I think the point is 8× more contributions
  
  Its good to know how you measure up against the big corpos.
- internet explorer, yahoo mail, myspace, icq... things change. unfortunately it's mostly due to a huge company having the resources to promote their product to convince people to migrate but still. people can leave old giants.
  
  Yeah, and Wikipedia, linux,... have become important as well, without big corpo
  
  Proton is 5.5% the size of G-mail. 100m vs 1.8b.
- Openstreetmap is better than Google where I live (Anatolian side of İstanbul).
- Take a definition of ACTIVE contributors, because both projects have a lot of inactive contributors that only registered and didn't do anything but just one update and left, if any.
  Google is known for dropping projects that they can't monetize enough. Maps' been around for a while, but it can always just disappear for public use. Or decide that you need a Google account too use it and that's a privacy nightmare. We need alternatives, but in this case, we need free and open source alternatives. We can't put all the eggs in the same basket.

Organic Maps is available on F-Droid.
- Do you have to add a Repo? I can't find it...
  
  You might have to enable showing apps with other anti-features in f-droid settings.
  https://fosstodon.org/@organicmaps/113050148958376004
  
  I'm showing it from a basic search. Are you using a fork of F-Droid?

I've used OrganicMaps in the past, but for searching POIs and ahead route planning its just unusable.
Meanwhile i've found GraphHopper, an open source search, route and (experimental) navigation app from Germany. Great thing: its blazing fast! Check it out on F-Droid.
- For the lazy: GraphHopper Maps (Online route planner and experimental GPS navigation) https://f-droid.org/packages/com.graphhopper.maps/
- Also check out Adresilo which uses Maps api to find a location then can feed it to the app of your choice.
  https://git.sr.ht/~amolith/adresilo/refs/v0.0.1-alpha

Just downloaded and installed Organic Maps from F-Droid. Looks really nice.

Aside from saving places what else can you do with google maps that can be exported?

I didn't know about Organic-Maps. I used Osmand, which has a subscription fee for downloading maps.
Thx!
- I didn't have to pay for it, installed from F-Droid, and I can download any map I've tried so far. When I'm traveling I like to pre-download the standard map for the whole state if it's one I don't already have installed. It's nice to not have to worry about data / reception.
  Overall OsmAnd is a pretty good GPS-map-navigation app, but has several annoyances and bugs. Still better than using Google's app to me. I need to check out Organic maps too
  
  Also nice to download all the Wikipedia data for the area, so you can read about places you visit...again, all without data.
- Osmand saved my ass multiple times hiking in very remote locations. Absolutely worth the subscription!
  
  Anything that keeps maps in local storage so you can use GPS while offline is somewhere between very helpful and lifesaving. Sounds like Osmand is in there.
  Organic Maps lets you download also. I got it specifically for backpacking because it enabled that. It certainly has been worth the $0. I should probably donate something each trip.
  
  Definetly one of the subscriptions I don't regret as much as others but still a steep cost for my frequency of usage. I need it approx 6 weeks per year and only as backup when traveling/hiking.
  A free alternative (simply Osm) is much appreciated.
- I use both OrganicMaps and OsmAnd. I find that OsmAnd is better for poweruser functions (like editing the map or recording a track), but OrganicMaps is a very simple navigation app that just works well.
- @Zementid @101
  Subscription fee? Is that a new thing? I've only been using OsmAnd from F-Droid, but I've been downloading maps for offline use without any subscription: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/
  
  I use FDroid, but OSMand from the play store has the subscription.

Google maps is the last vestige of Google that I use. I was never a Google search user and I only use Gmail for 'official' stuff.
So yeah, I want this to work.
- I left GoogleMaps a while ago, it worked fine for me. The only part of Google I can't leave is Play Store. Aurora might be the best alternative there.

Reminder: As long as you don't get rid of "Google Play Services" running as "root" 24/7, removing/not using Google Maps doesn't mean so much to Google.
- I disagree. It's a step in the right direction, even if there is still a long distance to go.
- Additional reminder that Google not only records your location minute by minute, they also record your motion activity through your phone's gyroscope and know exactly what you're doing (walking, running, biking, driving, playing sports, etc). You can view all of this in your history. It's genuinely infuriating that they can get away with this.
  You can turn it off in your settings, but as with any proprietary software you can never be sure that they're not still doing it (why wouldn't they? that's just leaving profit on the table)
  
  The phone sensors are so advanced that tools like "Sleep as Android" can record a perfect sleep snapshot just by leaving the phone on the bed while sleeping. I think Google can also record "private encounters" too. Actually, everything with a good sensor (smart watch(!)) can record everything. I am saying don't be afraid, be horrified :-)

Organic maps is great and I wish I could use it more. I commute in a city and traffic data is very important to me when it comes to route planning. It can be the difference between an hour commute and a 15min commute. Due to this, I'm pulled back to using google maps as my default.
Is it not possible to anonymize traffic data so that it can be made available in google maps? I'd gladly contribute a bit of data in order to improve this app. I'd even pay a bit of money for a pro version.
Great app all the same.
- There's another free OSM based app that does have some traffic data, it's called Magic Earth. Not open source though, as their business model is to sell adapted versions.

Just installed and signed into my OSM account! Been meaning to update more of my area.
I am looking to try moving away from Waze too. Are there any good open projects that have support for reporting cops and the other stuff like Waze? When I was looking last year, I came across Navmii since it does have some level of reporting stuff. However the app itself is very glitchy and I don't think it is really actively being worked on. Or is popular enough to even know if literally anyone around me is reporting things. When I have tried to report a cop being parked waiting for speeders, it doesn't show anything even on my map.
They use OSM data which I think is also not being actively scraped, as I personally added my entire street's addresses and doesn't show on Navmii (but does show up on the main OSM site and on Organic Maps).
- If you like to further improve your neighbourhood, check out https://streetcomplete.app/ Works well and is fun!
  
  I was seeing that brought up in many of the other comments, and I had apparently installed it at some point. So I have finally signed into it and even added some info one some road types around me! Even if I don't find a replacement for the community reporting of cops and hazards like Waze. I am jazzed to be helping OSM get just a bit closer to being a great option to recommend to friends and normies! Lots of them will only try other options as long as it is close enough to what they already use.

These posts are motivating
- Right?
  \ People doing things like this is hella faith-in-humanity-restoring.

Can't we script a complete copy of Google maps data (shops, highways etc) to this? Is the API restricted? Can we run distributed jobs for it? I can spin up some compute if someone is interested in trying this
- Organic maps SPECIFICALLY doesn't want that. It would be grounds for them being sued and having to comb through their database and remove any "questionable" material.
  It would be the end of the project, they don't have money for that.
  
  @Melatonin @MigratingtoLemmy
  Not Organic Maps, that's just the client. The data is OpenStreetMap, more info about imports here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import
- @MigratingtoLemmy @101 @openstreetmap
  No, this is against Google TOS and OpenStreetMap policy on data sources and the Data Working Group will step in and block any accounts doing this to protect the project as a whole.
- Yeah they restricted the API a while back.
- That's explicitly forbidden in Google Maps TOS
- First, google's lawyers will not like that.
  Second, in many places google maps data is not as good as Openstreetmap.

I tried this for my hiking trip and it is really good for that. But when i tried to use it as a navigation tool with my motorcycle it lagged pretty much all the time and couldn't keep up with my position and speed. I tried to change permissions for the app, but so far nothing worked.
- That's a shame. I just want to say that this issue is definitely not universal as I use it for navigation while driving and it works very well for me, and I've heard the same from others too. I'm not sure why it isn't working as well for you.
- "My bike is too fast for GPS" :D
- I use Magic Earth for navigation (mainly through Europe). That works beautifully for me - even offline.

It's... okay?
In fact no, it's by-far the best Google Maps alternative I've used so far, this clears OsmAnd+ easily. However, it still has quite a way to go. I can see why it's awesome for hiking, but this has some interesting side effects.
For example, I noticed right away that it cannot search for specific places in non-downloaded maps. This might seem like a "duh", but the maps around here seem extremely fine-grained, so I need to first search for the town, then download the map, then search for the street and address, then I can navigate. Oh no wait I cannot, I need to also download maps for all places in-between.
This makes complete sense for hiking, where I'm confined to a - comparatively - small area and want to pre-download this, at all times, always. And also don't really "search" for a specific address to route to beforehand, rather for a general area and then just get the map.
And of course, the quality of navigation is... adventurous. But I expected that, that's just something GMaps has a huge starting advantage at, and this clears what OsmAnd+ does and honestly feels better than Apple Maps, too. Though that's maybe not high praise, as in this area of the world Apple Maps is like getting lost only you use a smartphoen to do it.
Still, it's the second best I've seen. And for an open source app, that's an insane feat.
Hugely impressed, TY OP. Never heard of this before.

It's only a matter of time until Google Maps will enshittify, too.
- They already have. Have you noticed the number of ads shown on google maps?
  And I've been increasing given directions like "turn right after paid promotion X, with tagline Y"
  
  They already have. Have you noticed the number of ads shown on google maps?
  No? I've never seen any ads on Google Maps, though this might be a local thing. I suspect this is different in the US where "consumer rights" gets you a fine for speaking such communist propaganda?
  
  It's only a matter of time before Google doesn't give you directions for the shortest and most efficient route, but rather plans your route to send you past the stores that pay the most in advertising.
  "You could get to your destination by going down smith street fastest, but Glover Street has McDonald's so we will send you down that road"
  
  Oh hell, I have not had that one yet. I am already leaning away from it with just the random pins showing up on my nav that were not searched for.
  
  Enshittification truly is a shame, because my old school GPS actually does this already (Turn left past the McDonald's) and while I have no idea whether it's paid promotion or not on my device, I like that feature. If that feature is equally applied to any known business as a landmark (heck, even other services like police stations, fire stations, etc.) it would be appreciated by users.
  Instead, and here we are beating this drum again, capitalism gets its grubby fingers in this pie too and uses it for further advertising, turning a good feature into a bad one.

oh this is amazing

Might I recommend Magic Earth?
Organic maps is great, but the search is really finnicky.
Magic Earth has amazing UI, search, it can acts as a dashcam as you travel and that video can pinpoint your place on the map. I'm loving it.
- Absolutely Proprietary
  
  Dang it! Didn't even think to check ... Boo! Organic Maps it is!
- I'm not sure how or why, but Magic Earth has a FAR more complete address list than OSMand or Organic Maps where I live. It must be pulling from another data source as well, OSM doesn't have addresses for several neighborhoods in the city but Magic Earth does.
  Would anyone know why that would be?
  OSM not having massive chunks of my home city really does leave me with either Google Maps or Magic Earth.
  
  If you use OSMAnd, definitely look at importing addresses from this repo: https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation
  It substantially improves the issue I think you are describing by collating address data from OpenAddresses and making that available in the OSMAnd search.
  
  I'd like to know as well actually as I've found the same. Maybe I'm just using Organic Maps wrong? But if I am, then am I wrong or is Organic Maps as Magic Earth works so much more seamlessly. Magic Earth website clearly states it uses OSM.

Can OM accept GM link?
- https://omaps.app/test.html
  This page lists all links that OM is supposed to open, including GM.

Very nice, Open Street maps are very good! I support this.

i hope the author makes it available on whatever store harmony os has
- is it true that harmonyOS's upcoming release won't be compatible with android apps?
  
  According to Wikipedia:
  HarmonyOS NEXT (Chinese: 鸿蒙星河版; pinyin: Hóngméng Xīnghébǎn) is a proprietary distributed operating system and a major iteration of HarmonyOS, developed by Huawei to support only HarmonyOS native apps. The operating system is primarily aimed at software and hardware developers that deal directly with Huawei. It does not include Android's AOSP core and is incompatible with Android applications.

Google is such a great source of inspiration (_)

Absolutely love organic maps for cycling! It recommendeds sensible routes that are much safer. The only feature I miss (and I know organic maps strives for 100% feature completeness even offline so this would be unlikely to be added) is navigation using public transit in the UK. The national rail app is painfully slow and isn't easy to just search a location and just go, but it does work. Every bus company has their own app too... I haven't found a good replacement yet unfortunately :/
- Magic Earth (while not FOSS, it's privacy oriented though) can do this.
  There's also Transportr, but AFAIK it's been unmaintained for quite a while now, so it may not work / stop working soon.
  
  I am, and have been, relying on Transportr in multiple European countries, and it's been a joy. Only problem I've had is that additional information from the provider (temporary changes on the route etc.) isn't there, but that's no biggie. Sad to hear it's been unmaintained, hoping it'll keep working. Though, forking and updating the APIs for future broken providers wouldn't be too troublesome, right?
  There's also Öffi which was last updated on F-Droid 16 days ago. It does pretty much the same job as Transportr, though it visualises the overview of journeys in a different graphical way than the list of Transportr, which is why I liked Transportr better. However, Öffi has some other neat features that Transportr doesn't have, such as listing the upcoming departures for all nearby stations/stops at once, based on your location.
- I have the opposite experience for city biking at least. OSM / organic takes me on main roads, while gmaps is smart enough to keep me on bike-friendly roads.
  
  @dessalines @sassypablo You can try #OSMAnd optional with #BikeRouter

Its there any "android auto" alternative? so i can use it in my car's screen without google
- The app mentioned on the post, Organic Maps, has Android Auto. OsmAnd is another app that I know has it as well.
  
  But for has android auto, you have to had android auto, and google services, so....

Does the app have:
Location sharing
Live traffic updates
Public transportation
Missing one of these is a deal breaker.
- Yes, you can share location, the widgets aren't as fancy as Google integration with everything.
  Not feasible without the constant data harvesting in the background, which it doesn't do. It doesn't log your every move as Google does. Privacy vs surveillance, will always be at odds.
  Depending on the area. In my country public transportation is way better on OSM than on Gmaps. Oftentimes Gmaps won't even have large structures like train stations or bus terminals. It depends on users and contributors.
  
  It would be cool if there was an opt-in libre database to which we could submit pseudonymous traffic data. It would be hard to prevent sybil attacks though.

Rudo's tool sounds cool.
I've done those conversions by hand before, just deleting irrelevant Google junk out of the KML file to import it to OsmAnd~ because I planned my route on the desktop Google Earth app (3D is cool) and exported it to KML. After some edits it usually will import to OsmAnd on the phone
- If you ever need a 3D map on the phone, have a look at the OSM-based Magic Earth. You'll have to select a map style (in the General settings) with elevation, such as "Satellite 2 with Elevation and Streets".
  Unfortunately, the app is closed-source...

Can you also import saved maps from Avenza Maps for Android? I have it as my other maps app

How many non tech people would use this, especially if not in play store. 95% of people don't know fdroid exists
- @LordCrom @101
  95% of people don’t know fdroid exists
  Exactly, so let's keep talking about F-Droid and recommend it to the 95% of people, shall we?
  
  What impetus would most people have to mentally even start considering replacing Google Maps?
  Much like with making people switch to Firefox as a browser, the first step to a tech user is understanding that to most non-tech users, the concept of thinking about a browser choice makes no sense, as their goal is to open a web page, and the specifics between now and the web page being opened are irrelevant. It's equivalent to making non-DIY people care about the specifics of the brand of the hammer at home, it's not like they couldn't, but the very idea of doing that would usually leave them looking at you bewildered, as it feels arcane to invest brain time into a tool this simplistic and invisible.
- It wasn't gone from the play store for long.
- My dad uses it. He's as non-tech as non-tech gets. But I had to install it for him.