Organic Maps impressed me with its elegant UI, effective routing, and good ethics.

cross-posted from: https://psychedelia.ink/post/526072

My impression of Organic Maps immediately improved when I started driving. It talks! It knows exit numbers! It can tell you which lanes to use! Sure, it isn’t as polished as Google Maps, but all of the functionality is present. The UI is high-contrast and easy to read, although I wish the text showing exit numbers/street names was a little bigger. When you’re simply on the road and following directions, Organic Maps feels every bit as intuitive as Google Maps.

As my fiancee and I prepared to set off into the boonies, I plugged in the address of our hotel. About 45 seconds later, Organic Maps returned the 300-mile route to our destination. It can take a lot longer to calculate longer routes using your phone’s processor instead of a huge cloud server. It didn’t really bother me though; 45 seconds is nothing compared to the 6-hour trip ahead. If that’s the cost of using a maps app that doesn’t spray your personal data all over the internet, I’ll pay it.

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
      6·
      1 year ago

      Honestly, driving while looking at a screen to see where you need to go sounds dangerous to me. Now I don’t know your setup or how you do it, so you do you, maybe it does not distract you, I know it would distract me.

        • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          1 year ago

          If its somewhere new sure, can be an issue. If its somewhere where I have been and just don’t remember the way 100%, not an issue really.

          Cannot say anything about google maps, I use Osmand+ on my phone. That also has been pretty consistent for example with your problem off counting roundabout exits. Anything you could go out is an exit. Doesn’t matter if its a small road or whatever.

          But honestly I fond this in general less of a problem, because I don’t look at my phone at all I am looking at signs as well. So if my phone says second exit, I already see on a sign where that exit is as I drive up to the roundabout.

          Maybe you are fine just taking a glance and I certainly don’t want to judge you on this, but it just takes one time that you are “just taking a glance” where you miss something going on on the street and well, thats all it takes, one time. Then its too late. Please reconsider that and maybe try and get more used to listening again.

    • Voyager@psychedelia.inkOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      To be quite honest the routing issue you’re referring to is most likely related to invalid/outdated mapping data, as opposed to the routing algorithm the mapping engine uses to navigate.
      The benefit of using OpenStreetMap data for routing is that if you spot a mistake or a route that is incorrectly mapped you can fix it yourself, or leave a note for mapping contributors to examine and resolve. You can also browse the mapping data history and see exactly who and when mapped this region and even contact them if you wish.
      OSM supports much more mapping data via tagging, which translates to more accurate driving directions. To err is human, and OSM mappers make mistakes as well, but these can be easily fixed.

    • squiblet@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      I absolutely hate the robot lady telling me where to drive. I can’t even believe that’s the normal way of navigating for some people. I’m used to (and this is a shocking concept) looking at a map and figuring out where to go.