As the title states. I really want to like and use open source maps, but it seems that whatever database they are pulling from is pretty bad and incomplete overall. You also have to put the exact name, as it is in the system, otherwise it will not come up.
Just to use a really simple and well known example, after downloading the appropriate maps for this search, if I search for “the liberty bell”, the first four results are either roads or businesses near me, then the liberty bell museum in Allentown (which btw is permanently closed), and then the liberty bell center, then the liberty bell center again for some reason, and then finally the actual liberty bell itself. There are also suggestions down the list that no longer exist, such as the liberty bell pavilion. So this is clearly outdated data that is being used.
The suggested searches are also nonsense, only taking the last word into account, i.e suggesting “belles ave”, “bellgrove rd”, etc, rather than “liberty bell center”, which would be the most logical suggestion for that search.
Why is this so bad, and what needs to happen to make it better?
Giving voluntary people ability to create maps by giving them software for free is very different from trying to write software that can compete with commercial products. To fix it you need a team of developers / machine learning engineers that would create search model from existing data. You also need big computing power and money to run efficient search and doing so with free hosted products is nearly impossible.
No street numbers, either. just the whole street. which is also a problem in organic maps
It’s a problem no matter what interface you use because the real issue is the underlying data.
I have the same issue where I live and I keep getting tempted to do an ad-hoc fix for myself, but the correct thing to do would be to find and upload a dataset that actually has parcel-level address data instead of only block-level data.
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Community data like OpenSteeetMap rely on voluntary submissions, so the data can be either obsessive-level complete or non-existent. Especially businesses don’t put themselves on OSM so their location/name/info are somewhat old or just don’t exist
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Search algorithms are incredibly complex to make it work well, Google (the king lf search engines) has likely hundreds of people working on an algorithm, Apple the same way
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Offline search is also very taxing even if tue app implemented such algorithms, google maps searches with their billion dollars servers
I can’t find the link from my phone, but there is a website for adding your business to OSM. It has options for things like the business name and opening hours. That could be helpful for surveying businesses and adding them to the map yourself, just ask the business owners for the details.
If I can find the link later I’ll post it here 👍
I’m adding businesses to OSM all the time. In fact, whenever I encounter any business (clothes shop, cafe, etc) that is not yet on OSM, I usually add it right away. Including business hours, WiFi presence (I wish I could mark non-availability of WiFi by the way), phone number and web address.
Searching is another thing though. If I’ve already been to the place, then it’s already on OSM (see above), so finding it is relatively easy. Also, I bookmark frequent places as well. If I’m searching for a new place and the first few seconds on CoMaps aren’t helpful, I honestly just open Google Maps in a browser. My stubbornness aside, if you want the more results, and most relevant results, it’s better. After I find the place I navigate via CoMaps again because for bike/pedestrian navigation, it’s better.
That’s the one, thank you 🙂
Just to confirm #1: moved to another city, and pretty much any address within the city is now searchable and correct. POIs are a bit off, but I try to update them.
Some places publish address data with a compatible license, some even directly importable to osm. But e.g. here where I live, we got an official address list for each residential addresses (no offices, factories, etc.), but without coordinates. So we can only use it to check if we still have to survey something.
The biggest open address db I know of is openaddresses, you can see on their coverage page it’s a hit or miss if they have data: https://batch.openaddresses.io/data#map=0%2F0%2F0
Another address source list is on the Overture maps attribution page, you can see in some places they don’t even have country wide sources, they had to ask from city level governments: https://docs.overturemaps.org/attribution/
Openaddresses shows my county as green, but my area only has block-level addresses in OpenStreetMap. What’s up with that?
They may only have that block level addresses. Or simply no one imported that data to osm yet. Or maybe its license is not compatible with ODbL, the license of OSM. There may be a lot of reasons, the easiest was to know it is to contact local mappers and ask them, you can find your local community here: https://openstreetmap.community/
You know, that’s like the third time I’ve been given that exact advice. I just really don’t want to make a whole new account on Slack or whatever just to talk to OSM people.
Use the forum then, you don’t have to register, you can login with your OSM account: https://community.openstreetmap.org/c/communities/us Most top mappers usually follow multiple channels.
So what you’re saying is, if I want an actually functional map, I have to use Google or apple?
Not at all. I love Organic Maps/Comaps and I think in many aspects including usability (GM is trash to navigate and drains batteries like hell), it’s much better than GM. However, when I want to reach a place I either find the address online, or search on google maps and then navigate to it with a better, lighter, offline, more beautiful app.
I’m just saying that open source maps usually are heavily lacking on the search functionality, and that’s sad but understandable.
If you’re on Android, try GeoShare, it allows you to share location from Google Maps to CoMaps, so you could easily use CoMaps for navigation.
You can also use GWMaps
Very neat, thanks for sharing! I just gave it a test and it works perfectly.
Interesting, thanks!
It’s up to you to define “functional” based on your use case. If you are unhappy with the current state of Comaps or other open source map apps, then of course you are free to use Google or Apple.
Edit just to expand somewhat: For what it’s worth, I find Comaps great for my use case, so it is more than “funcional” for me. That’s what I was getting at.
I would prefer to get away from Google, and don’t have an iPhone so apple is not an option atm. Looking into it a bit more, and I am learning that it’s a community built map from OSM, so I am understanding why it is the way it is. I will work on contributing and customizing it to my liking.
Contribute with money or your time. Google spends gazillion of money on maintaining their map data, on osm only several thousand people, mostly volunteers work on it WORLDWIDE.
With comaps you can report problems you find on the map, I frequently solve issues in my area reported by comaps users.
Another option is that there are several other navigation apps on Android: MapQuest, Magic Earth, Sygic, HERE WeGo, TomTom GO, MapFactor. I don’t know how they compare, but I’ve seen them offered as non open source Google Maps alternatives. But yes, contributing to the community maps data is awesome if you can.
Frankly, they all suck, a LOT compared to Google Maps. And I don’t particularly like Google Maps functionality (let alone their draconian data gathering).
I really, really want to use something more open, and I’ve tried every app you’ve listed. I even own a lifetime license for CoPilot.
No one has a search that compares to Google in any meaningful way, so I have to use GMaps for search. If I have to do that, I may as well just use GMaps even though it sucks in it’s own ways.
I really want to not use GMaps, but there really aren’t any competitive products (and I have seven mapping apps on my phone I keep trying, they just all suck).
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
I am quite satisfied with Magic Earth.
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Yeah I can’t use them for this reason. Switched to
Organic Maps.Magic Earth.As the other commenter said, it has the same issue. Anything based on OSM does. Like I said in another thread though, it is user generated, so I am going to contribute however I can.
Any time I go to a business/organization of some sort, I check to see if it’s on OSM (thru CoMaps), and if it isn’t, then I add it. If the business is there but doesn’t have any info attached to it (web page, phone #, hours, etc) I try to add that too. I’ve also found that for hiking OSM is frequently superior to Google maps. But yes, there are definitely some gaps which can make it frustrating to use sometimes.
I’ve also found that for hiking OSM is frequently superior to Google maps.
Almost every single time, in my decade of experience across Europe and outside.
Also, cheers! (For always adding a business to OSM whenever visiting one)
I’ve almost never found my destination in the OSM, but I don’t always have time to add them. It’s a pain.
If you are interested in adding them, you can leave a note saying that the business is there, or leave a note for yourself with something like GeoNotes, and add it later. For GeoNotes, it could be something as simple as a pin saying ‘Starbucks is here’ so that the location is saved for you to add later :)
Good idea!
The addresses are in OSM. They just don’t come up in the search.
Just a quick note, Magic Earth will become a subscription from 2026, $0.99 per year: https://www.magicearth.com/pricing
But I stopped using it, because they added
Overture MapsFoursquare dataset, and it contains a lot of very very low quality POIs in my city, so it became unusable for me as an OSM contributor. From the huge noise it’s hard to find the actually existing things. So from no POIs on the map they quickly switched to too much non-existent POIs on the map…That seems very fair. I will gladly pay it as long as it doesn’t require a Google account.
Yes, I would pay for it if the fake data wouldn’t be there. Currently it’s the only osm based navigation app with live traffic data
infeeeee@lemmy.zip
There is no mention of 2026. The information has been on the site for at least six months.
The external data comes mainly from Foursquare. Magic Earth would like to introduce a kind of rating system in the future so that incorrect data can be reported.It’s still works for me without a subscription, that’s why I thought they will start to charge in 2026.
About the dataset I was wrong, it’s not overture, so it’s not just full of fakes and duplicates, but seems outdated…
I’m an osm contributor, I don’t want to deal with corporate spam in my map app. If I find a problem in osm, I can fix it, and it’s published with an open license. I don’t want to support a million dollar company with my work for free.
i find that it has the same issues
Sorry I mean Magic Earth 😅
