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 So this is clearly outdated data that is being used.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?
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.
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 😅