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117 points

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.

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46 points
15 points

It says “page not found”, maybe because I’m not in EU.

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7 points

I’m in the US, also says page not found for me.

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2 points

Same in EU

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3 points

Very strange. It doesn’t work. I shared directly from the f-droid client droid-ify

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html

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2 points

Link to fdroid next time

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9 points
*

Oh weird. That’s shared from droid-ify which is an f-droid client.

Here’s the proper link https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html

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4 points

Yeah trying to find anything on any of the competing apps is basically impossible. I mean ffs OSMand literally couldn’t do address lookup!

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2 points

I have found Organic Map’s search to be far better than OSMand. OSMand has far more features though.

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3 points

I just recently learned this.

For OsmAnd, go to search, then the categories tab, and then hit “Online Search”.

Voila, address lookup.

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8 points

Same issue here. I really like their maps in general, but my local area in OSM is about a decade out of date

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13 points

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 With StreetComplete I recently fixed ~8 stores that were many years out of date, during an hour walk.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.

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6 points

I keep businesses in my area up-to-date, doesn’t take much time at all.

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6 points

That kind of contribution seems like a lower level of effort than making changes to source code.

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15 points

And there are apps that make it very very easy and fun. Check out street complete.

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3 points

i think openstreetmaps only works in big countries honestly

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-3 points

What does the size of the country have to do with it? Which good big and bad small countries are you talking about?

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2 points

Most people don’t use openstreetmaps on these small countries like with low/medium population it feels like apple maps on there

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32 points

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)

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3 points

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?

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1 point
35 points

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

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12 points
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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.

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29 points
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Umm…it benefits loads of people.

On OSM you don’t have to just flag something. You can edit it directly, so it leads to more accurate information.

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45 points

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…

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3 points

I’ve just installed this now, thanks for the tip!

So many quests right on my street!

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9 points

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.

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4 points

I didn’t know about map complete, thanks!

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3 points

@controlphreak @snrkl
Now that StreetComplete has overlay layers for places and things you can add most of the thing you’d want to add in person.

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4 points

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

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1 point

You can add the POIs and fill the gaps!

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3 points
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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.

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