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.

  • malamignasanmig@group.lt
    5·
    1 year ago

    i first considered this when maps.me went to shreds. for a while, i used both organic maps and osmand for my cycling trips. the cleaner interface of organic maps won me over. my main gripe at that time was the absence of a route import function. the dev team added that recently. now, i can import both kml and gpx formats.
    now, if there is a way to save the in-app planned routes, that would be a huge help.

    • Hasuris@sopuli.xyz
      3·
      1 year ago

      Wait what happened to maps.me? I still have it installed but barely use it but fondly remember the days hiking with it or exploring new towns.

      • klangcola@reddthat.com
        6·
        1 year ago

        From Wikipedia

        … until the application was sold to the payment processor Daegu Limited, part of Parity.com, which changed the application user interface and content,[7][8] which led the free software community to develop an ad- and tracker-free fork called ‘Organic Maps’ in response.[

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Ah. I tried it recently while overseas, noticed it had been completely enshitified, then came across organic maps. It’s better than maps.me ever was, so good riddance.

      • N4CHEM@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        It was sold and got worse into he last years. The goof news is that some of the original developers of maps.me made a fork of that application… Organic Maps.

    • Atemu@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      Btw:

      Organic Maps is a free Android & iOS offline maps app for travelers, tourists, hikers, and cyclists based on top of crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap data. It is a privacy-focused, open-source fork of Maps.me app (previously known as MapsWithMe), maintained by the same people who created MapsWithMe in 2011.