I ask because I have tried both and neither consistently find destinations I need, and when they do, they don’t route me there in the fastest or most efficient way possible. My first experience with Organic Maps, for instance, tried to turn what was usually a 4 hour drive into a nearly 6 hour drive. I used Google Maps to get there instead.

Google Maps is still the best navigation I’ve used, followed closely by Magic Earth, which gets the job done but still isn’t all that great. I find myself resorting to Google Maps 9 times out of 10 because even Magic Earth will add 15-30 minutes to any trip. Even when I do use Magic Earth, I have to double-check it against Google’s navigation just to make sure I’m not wasting any extra time or gas money on the road.

Also, a little gripe with OSMAnd that probably isn’t too big of a deal, but OSMAnd can’t find anything unless I download my state map. It tells me “nothing found within 5 miles” and gives me the option to expand the radius. But at 10, 15, 20, all the way up to 50 miles, it won’t find I’m looking for. Like I said, not too big a deal since downloading the map of my state solves this issue, but it’s still inconvenient and kind of a waste of internal storage space given that other apps can navigate successfully using online maps.

I’m wondering how any of you get by using OSMAnd / Organic Maps as I’ve seen people post on Lemmy that they do. Am I just missing something? Or are these apps really as bad as I think they are?

Edit: I should specify that I use navigation mainly for driving and Olive in the US. Seems like people biking / hiking in the EU have a bit of an easier time with some of these apps

  • Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz
    15·
    1 year ago

    I have not used either for cars but I have tried both for driving bicycles. The thing with open street map is that they have a lot more of the small streets that bikes can go on but cars can’t. In my experience google maps usually wants me to drive my bike right on some huge multi-lane car road for 3 hours and totally ignores the bike path right next to it. When I went on a 1 month bicycling trip I tried both but found that OSMAnd had vastly better suited roads. Some of the tiniest tiny roads it sent me on were some of the most memorable of the whole journey. Sometimes the path in OSMAnd will just be a dirt path half a meter wide and I love that. I thought many times who on earth even added all these roads! I’m so thankful for every local nerd who added every single dirt road in his neighborhood on there. Simply amazing sometimes. But yeah it doesn’t work at all if you don’t download the map that’s true. Also I really can’t answer for navigating by car.