Facebook, Apple and Microsoft Are Contributing To OpenStreetMap (theodi.org)

At the recently concluded State of the Map conference in Milan, teams from Microsoft, Apple and Facebook presented their projects, describing how they are working with communities. From a report: The Microsoft Open Maps team has recently released open data on building footprints in the US. Microsoft was among the first to release satellite imagery for use by OpenStreetMap and the images are now integrated into the default editor. It also has a community of mappers directly contributing to OpenStreetMap in Australia. Apple has an internal volunteer programme that has around 5,000 staff contributing to Missing Maps, they've released building data for France and Denmark, and are engaged with data improvement projects around the world. Facebook is exploring how artificial intelligence-assisted tracing can help to improve the quality of OpenStreetMap data in Thailand.

DigitalGlobe has made its satellite imagery available under a licence that will allow it to be used by the OpenStreetMap community to improve their mapping efforts. Telenav launched OpenStreetCam to help collect openly-licensed street imagery and has now released open data and code to explore how machine learning can enable the images to be used to improve OpenStreetMap with stop signs and turn directions.

Comments

Competition is good

[gavron]

It's good that someone wants to compete with Google Maps. It will make both products stronger. With industry leaders like Microsoft OpenStreetMaps may one day be useful.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

OSM is already useful.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

It's irrelevant that someone wants to compete with Google Maps. They will patent sue it into oblivion if/when it presents any kind of credible threat.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

"hmm, this hotel is cheap" *checks street view* "Oh... that's why it's cheap"

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. Fuck you, madam.

Re:Competition is good

[rtb61]

Knowing where a carpark is, is one thing, knowing the best route to access the carpark entry is another, and knowing what it looks like. All they need to do is exactly what google did, drive around with a car with cameras mounted on top, focus on the money making bits first and don't be M$ because Windows anal probe 10 does not win friends and influence enemies and well Facebook is rapidly becoming that dumb fate kid that spies on everyone a dobs every one it, and says all sorts of rubbish behind everyone's back. So yeah, be Apple with a car that drives around and takes photos but they wont be able to help themselves and they will make it Apple exclusive although it would only take just abit more than half a brain to pick https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck... as the search partner, now that would really stick it to Google.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

OSM doesn't excel as a street map (despite the name).

But it is far far superior to the other offerings out there when it comes to cycling / jogging / hiking use - to find the beaten path, where the paved roads do not exist.

Re:Competition is good

[xvan]

osm uses vector graphs. Is there enough infrastructure to provide a free open street view?

Re: Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not the beat, but considering its backing, its pretty damn good. The geocoder is crap compared to Google, but that just takes time.

I can build apps around OSM,without making my customer data Google's data, which is a nice option.

Re:Competition is good

[Trogre]

Three more words:

Always offline maps.

This gives apps like OSMAnd an advantage over Google, whose support for persistent offline maps I've found to be a bit lacking.

Re:Competition is good

[Tough Love]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Terrestrial virtual presence.

I can get by without it. The first and most important functionality I require from an online map is navigation. I have every reason to believe that Open Street Map can give me what I need, and thus give me a way to escape Google's spying.

Nothing says that Open Street map can't get loaded up with street level photos in time, I just don't feel any urgency about it.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

I can't even fathom how you survived in the days before street view. Maybe I have better map reading skills, but I enter Street View once every 6 months, at best. I'm pretty sure other people behave similarly. After all, even your car's GPS has no street view and it takes you to the right place.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

People do take images from cars and by other means which is intergrated into OpenStreetMap.

Look at OpenStreetCam and Mapillary.

All the tools are there it's just implementing them.

Re:Competition is good

[thegarbz]

All they need to do is exactly what google did, drive around with a car with cameras mounted on top, focus on the money making bits first and don't be M$

Except MS did and does do exactly like Google does and there are Bing cars mapping everywhere. But let's all play this game:

All they need to do is be like MS and contribute to Linux and don't be Google who are funding defence projects to kill people with AI.
All they need to do is be like Ford and produce good cars and don't be like Tesla who sell cars that get government subsidies.

See how stupid that sounds when you pick a good example and a bad example?

Who else can we do?
All they need to do is be like MS who produced a whole new form factor and not like Apple who can't make a keyboard which works.
All they need to do is be like Facebook and create a platform people like and not like the NSAwhich is spying on you.

Okay I'm done now.

Re:Competition is good

[gshegosh]

OSM is a serious competitor to GM when it comes to hiking, cycling, etc. - in many areas OSM maps are way more detailed. And in this use case (I admit it might be a niche one) street view is not that necessary.

Re:Competition is good

[Freischutz]

Three more words:

Always offline maps.

This gives apps like OSMAnd an advantage over Google, whose support for persistent offline maps I've found to be a bit lacking.

I agree with that other than that I'd call say Google's support for offline maps sucks ass. Their assumption that you are always connected wherever you are is a fantasy that usually ends the moment you leave the city limits and/or the motorways. Also, if I had to choose between street view and being able to use the navigation app to locate goods and services I'd pick the later in a heartbeat.

Re:Competition is good

[fgouget]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

Two words:
Mapillary
OpenStreetCam

Anyone with a smartphone can be a Google competitor. The numbers are on our side.

Re:Competition is good

[Plumpaquatsch]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.

Yeah, that's fine and dandy - when it is even available and not completely out of date.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

... Mapillary OpenStreetCam ...

Both of which have vast swaths of roadways even in major cities that are entirely uncovered.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

While it's not a live satellite feed, obviously, it's usually good enough for getting a feel for your actual destination.

So-called alternatives to Street View are sorely lacking... sometimes even completely missing out on large sections of roads in even very major cities, especially the side roads, but sometimes even many blocks of a so-called main road in that area as well.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair Google Street view also has big swaths either uncovered or woefully out of date. Actually their satellite data is way out of date to. For example my house. We have lived in it for three years. It is in the SF Bay Area and is just standard tract housing - not something way out in the woods - in a decent sized city, right off the highway. The Street view shows a road with just open fields on either side. No houses around at all. The satellite showed the same until recently. Now the satellite shows our house, but the houses next to us on one side are still just a field. Again they have been there for 3 years now. Good thing it shows our house now though - otherwise we would have had a hell of a time getting solar installed. They always want to do the design based on the Google satellite imagery.

Re:Competition is good

[petermgreen]

IMO where both google and openstreetmap fall down as a street map is that you have to zoom in way too far to see all the street names. I believe this is a result of the tiles being auto-generated, rather than someone manually packing the information in.

It's tolerable when using the map interactively because you can zoom in to check the road names in your immediate vicinity and out to get the bigger picture, but it's a big problem if you are trying to print maps.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

Google Street view also has big swaths either uncovered...

Not in my experience. All of the cities that I have in my Google offline maps are practically a hundred percent covered today. I can't remember the last time I tried to look up an address and not been able to see a street view of a place unless it was very far removed from any actually populated areas.

I can agree that being 3 years out of date for what is evidently a new community such as what you are describing would be annoying, but for established areas that have been around for a long time, which covers a significant percentage of many major cities today, it's entirely adequate.

I live in a building that is 40 years old, the building itself being about as old as many of the other buildings near where I live, and there aren't even any views from the street I live on in either of the alternatives mentioned above, let alone my actual apartment building. The closest view I can get is about 2 blocks away, and is useless for identifying what my street actually looks like.

Re:Competition is good

[fgouget]

... Mapillary OpenStreetCam ...

Both of which have vast swaths of roadways even in major cities that are entirely uncovered.

Absolutely. The same could be said of Wikipedia four years after it started. The rest is history...

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

I just used OSM to navigate a cross country trip.

Super useful. Especially because its offline

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

Let me remind you what I said:

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Note in particular that the verb "is" would be a *PRESENT TENSE* conjugative form. I did not suggest that OpenStreetMap could never become a competitor, only that Google *HAS* no real competition on account of the significant advantage of a terrestrial virtual presence facility that has excellent coverage of every major city around the world.

Plus, I'm not entirely convinced that OpenStreetMap would ever really get thorough terrestrial virtual presence even in major cities anyways... lacking the commercial incentive to go out of the way and take photographs exhaustively through every side street in major cities like Google does.

Re:Competition is good

[im_thatoneguy]

Streetview is amazing. But...

Waymo autonomous vehicles is a Google\Alphabet company. High resolution maps are somewhere between helpful and essential to self driving car efforts. None of the other self driving companies want to become reliant on Google their competitors to keep that map data affordable.

Tesla for instance is already starting to rely on OpenStreetMap data. As soon as the other autonomous vehicles start driving around they'll be crowd sourcing way more street level data every day than Google can manage today. Google will also have waymo vehicles doing the same thing but the playing field will be far more level.

Self Driving cars will be updating the map in real time. From a consumer's perspective the map data will be either 1 hour or 1 minute old. That's different from today where data is 1 year or a decade old.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

You start by saying "street view is amazing, but...", suggesting that you were going to raise some point which might cause one to question how important a feature like street view might be.

But then you don't actually point out anything that would diminish the usefulness of such a facility, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.

I said that Google Maps has no real competitors right now because any of the ones that might otherwise be don't have any sort of comprehensive terrestrial virtual presence. If or when they do, that's great.... but they don't right now, and since I'm not a time traveller, I only try and work with technology that has already been invented and make use of it instead of holding out for something that might not even materialize in my lifetime.

Re:Competition is good

[Plumpaquatsch]

While it's not a live satellite feed, obviously, it's usually good enough for getting a feel for your actual destination.

So-called alternatives to Street View are sorely lacking... sometimes even completely missing out on large sections of roads in even very major cities, especially the side roads, but sometimes even many blocks of a so-called main road in that area as well.

So what you are saying is that satellite view - when from Google - is good enough as a replacement for Street View - but not when it it comes from another Map service.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

No, satellite view is not a replacement for Street View. Since I was saying Street View is the most distinctive feature of Google Maps that sets it apart from any alternatives that are alleged to be competitors. I was suggesting that if one is already using Street View, then there is no reason why they wouldn't just get the map data from Google as well since it's right there anyways.

I know that Street View itself isn't perfect, but it has close to 100% coverage of practically every street in thousands of cities, including the numerous side streets that go into residential communities within those cities.

Re:Competition is good

[Askmum]

Which is exactly how OSM started. Compare this image of Worcester in 2008 to how it looks now.

Re:Competition is good

[fgouget]

Let me remind you what I said:

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

One does not have to be a perfect replacement for a service right now to be a serious competitor. Just like cars were initially not a perfect replacement for carts, and yet were serious competition.

Plus, I'm not entirely convinced that OpenStreetMap would ever really get thorough terrestrial virtual presence even in major cities anyways... lacking the commercial incentive to go out of the way and take photographs exhaustively through every side street in major cities like Google does.

The lack of a commercial incentive is a double-edged sword. There are lots of places where people complain about the lack of Google StreetView coverage precisely because there's no commercial incentive. But with crowdsourced services like Mapillary and OpenStreetCam anyone interested in adding coverage can do so. Lack of commercial incentive mean the crowd contributes on what interests them, and isn't that what matters?

Plus there is commercial incentive to add coverage, in some countries at least. For instance in France cities collect taxes on advertising billboards but they need to inventory them. Sogefi can be hired to drive cars around to provide this inventory service and uses Mapillary for that, thus providing coverage in a lot of places. In another instance some towns, unhappy about the Google coverage, decided to improve the map for their territory to draw in tourists and put cameras on their garbage trucks. This type of partnership can be a cheap way to contribute pretty exhaustive street-level coverage. That said Google also has partners, among which Sogefi, so it's not like only OpenStreetMap benefits from the extra coverage.

Also, the belief that coverage will never be good enough can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then everyone loses.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

One does not have to be a perfect replacement for a service right now to be a serious competitor

Of course, but knowing what a destination looks like from the ground can often be just as important as knowing where it is on a map, and the coverage in that respect using OpenStreetMap is vastly below any usable level. For the couple of alternatives mentioned above, large residential communities within even very major cities in North America are completely uncovered, unless one is interested in an address right on the perimeter of such a community and therefore on a main road. Plus, the only ground-level views that I was ever able to get even of the roads that have coverage were dash-cam views pointed strictly in the direction of travel along that road, so you still can't actually see what a given address looks like when you are right in front of it, and at best only get an oblique view from the side as one approaches it. I would say that neither of them is even a tenth as useful as Street View, and perhaps only very slightly more useful than just having a map alone.

Do they look like they might be on their way to getting there? Sure.... I have to concede that point, but they are still nowhere close to anything that I would think of as a serious competitor, because to me, a serious competitor has to actually *BE* a viable alternative, not just something that might eventually become a useful alternative at some point in the future, assuming that the drive to make it become so even exists, which I wouldn't want to necessarily shut down or impede, but I am dubiously skeptical of.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

OSM is fine if all you want is a map, but as I said, knowing what something looks like from the ground when you get there... more or less, even with some allowance for the image being a few years old, is still just as useful. Not so much particularly useful by itself, although it could be, as much as an invaluable addition to overhead mapping.

None of the alternatives to Google maps have their own alternative to Street View that is anywhere even close to being as complete, and of the ones that I've tried, they are so incomplete as to be only very modestly more useful than an overhead map in the first place.

Re:Competition is good

[Askmum]

None of the alternatives to Google maps have their own alternative to Street View that is anywhere even close to being as complete, and of the ones that I've tried, they are so incomplete as to be only very modestly more useful than an overhead map in the first place.

What I am trying to say is that OSM in 2010 also was no alternative to Google Maps. And see where it is now. Mapillary is also in the upstart period. Mapillary received 4.7 million images from the Arizona DOT just recently. https://www.facebook.com/mapil...
Sure, it may not be an alternative now, but as fgouget says: the numbers are on our side. In a few years time it will be an alternative and might even serve more purposes than Google Streetview.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

Sure.... *MAYBE* it will, but I said that there *ARE* no real alternatives to Google Maps, primarily on account of Google Map's ground-level views that are linked directly to the overhead map. That's a present tense assertion. The fact that there are some projects that are making headway which *MIGHT* eventually get there at some point in the future is entirely independent of that.

That said, I'm not holding my breath.... Exhaustive ground level views sides of virtually every road in every major city around the world, including photos of what was off to the sides, took Google years to accumulate, and that was *WITH* corporate backing to make it materialize. And as I said about Mapillary and OpenStreetCam, neither of these even has any views from the ground that are anything other than the direction the vehicle is travelling, which does not really help you know what a particular locations looks like when you actually get there... a core facility of Street View that without it, would make it virtually useless.

I'll concede that Street View isn't nearly as helpful as I usually find it if there are somewhat recent developments in the area and the photos are too old, but in my experience that is relatively infrequently. It happens sometimes, sure... but not so often as to actually impact the overall usefulness of the facility or incline me to not even bother with it, as I can say right now is definitely the case for both of the alternatives mentioned above.

Remember What Gracenote USED TO BE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never forget, what you giveth it taketh away! It's The Republican Way!

Ancient Proverb

[ArhcAngel]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Google dominates with Google Maps and Waze. Their own offerings are languishing on their respective platforms while Google pulls away. They are now more concerned about the long term effect of their overall business if Google monopolizes the space. So they all decide to back OpenStreetMap in hopes it can mount a challenge. We'll see. It would take a lot to get me to switch from Waze but Google's shenanigans of late have me looking.

Re:Ancient Proverb

[thegarbz]

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. Nothing more.

Re:Ancient Proverb

[thoughtlover]

The 'real' ancient proverb is, "It's a trap!"

Tag: embraceextendextinguish

Just like Google kept their maps API up-to-date, allowed almost unlimited calls to their db... and then they started to axe access to certain parts of the API with request/data limits. At least that's the gist I get out of the deal from a friend that used to work for a map app company years back --get the developers to rely on your ever-richer data set and then hit em with access fees.

With the 'other side' knocking on the door, I wonder if they'll be able to use some legal tactic to eventually own OpenStreetMap --maybe a fork of it somehow...I'm just throwing terrible guesses out.. it's late, sorry.a

Re:Ancient Proverb

[Anonymous Coward]

These companies already contribute to OpenCensorship of anyone not a hardcore SJW, so why not OpenStreetMap?

Re:Ancient Proverb

[Anonymous Coward]

The enemy of my enemy can potentially be useful as a tool when used against my enemy.

The Problem with Google Maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that if you use the API in an app or website, is that it now gives the entire world unfettered access to any credit card attached to the Google account using the API. It is a huge vulnerability and no business with any sense would use Google Maps now.

Want to attack a business that uses Google Maps? Just refresh that page with a maps embed on it a few thousand times, their credit card will be billed directly.

It is foolish to use Google Maps with this gaping vulnerability.

Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[ob0101011101]

Google (or some up-stream data provider) marked a forest track across our property as a "road" - it's literally a track only fit for walking for very experienced 4WD drivers. Yet a couple of times a week people are parked outside our house wondering where the road has gone. Occasionally they're quite upset, as if somehow it's my fault that google sent them 10km out of their way.

We've "told" google it's not a road, encourage everyone who ends up here to do so as well, yet nothing ever changes.

Is it even possible to get through to google without a lawsuit?

So I'd really like to see OSM maps used more for navigation, at least I feel like I can contribute to this.

Re:Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google maps has a "Send feedback" >> "Wrong Information" page that lets you edit roads.
If you've done that and it hasn't worked, then you're probably at that lawsuit point.

Another option is to just not worry about it and ignore people that are dumb enough to park or get out of their car and look for a road that obviously isn't there. You're under no obligation to waste your time with them.

Re:Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google maps here has turned the shadow of a cliff face into a lake.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[steve.rodrigue]

You know you can submit a correction by yourself to google to fix this issue. If no one ever reports it, it can't be magically fixed.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[dead_user]

My neighborhood only has one entrance and exit. There USED to be a road that ran behind a few businesses and cut through to the mall. Hundreds of cars a day streamed through back of the otherwise quiet neighborhood to use the secret shortcut to the mall that only they knew about.

The City placed a gate on the road, blocking it off. 18 years ago.

It is effectively rusted shut at this point. I reported this to both Google Maps and Waze through the app numerous times. After several years, I and all the delivery guys in my neighborhood still have to ignore the directions on the GPS until we are on city streets again. It's irritating as fuck but so is repeatedly submitting an edit request that is completely ignored.

Re:Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[xvan]

Or just paint a big ass sign at the entrance of the path... Either one explaining the situation or one that says "private prop, trespassers will be shot"

Re:Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, have you edited OSM yourself to correct the problem? Or is it correct already there?

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[tlhIngan]

You know you can submit a correction by yourself to google to fix this issue. If no one ever reports it, it can't be magically fixed.

And as someone who does map corrections from time to time, Google can be very erratic. I can submit a correction, get a nice email saying it's been accepted, and the map still reflects the un-corrected view.

Note that these emails didn't say they were considering the change, but that the change was made.

One change took me a number of tries until it finally updated (I tried for a year and a half to fix the error, getting the "your change is approved" email every time) and everyone else was happy the change finally occurs.

And yet, other times, I submit one change and it's updated instantly right then and there. Go figure.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[isj]

And then that fix goes into the Google silo. The end. Noone else can benefit.

Contribute to OSM and many people/communities/companies can access that fix.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can contribute to OSM, instead... it's how the maps are kept up-to-date...

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we submitted a change to where our house was located (new development, they had our house placed at the "model" home). A few months later they had us placed at our mail-stop across the street. We kinda shrugged and said that is close enough for people with a brain to do the rest.

wego.here.com, on the other hand, has us placed firmly within our walls.

Seems OSM doesn't recognize that the street has homes on it, nor that the street next to ours was disconnected from the highway.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[drinkypoo]

In Clearlake, CA, Google will happily route you through the Clearlake Highlands to get to places beyond them. Problem is, no road has EVER connected through there. It was planned, but not executed. Google doesn't bother to send street view vehicles onto dirt roads as a matter of policy, so they never verified the road information. The problem is that while there's room to turn around, driving in and out of there can get you accosted by a meth-head who will jump in his vehicle, thrash it down the hill at way over the speed limit, then screech to a stop in front of your vehicle and get out to scream at you about slowing down because his kids play in the street. At least, it happened to me. Thanks, Google!

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google once sent me on a dirt road to the center of a several mile plain of nothing north of San Antonio, telling me that my hotel was there.

It also told me to take non-existent turns off of several mountain roads in Gatlinburg.

Apple Maps

[perry64]

I've used Apple Maps. I'm not sure OSM should want their help.

Re:Apple Maps

[jfdavis668]

A man using Apple Maps walks into a bar, or a hotel, or possibly a church...

Re:Apple Maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Im sure in typical apple style; they are taking out much more than they are putting in.

APPLE why not get store employee's ?

[johnjones]

why not encourage your apple store employee's to contribute in a meaningful way to openstreetmap ? its a nice way that store employee's would actually feel they are helping the community and not just serving the corporation...

Here maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install the Here maps app.

OpenStreetMaps is unlikely to ever keep up with the commercial software, (Here maps is from the German car makers, and is based on the former Nokia code). If you don't have users driving with GPSs and submitting corrections, you won't keep up with the constant data changes that maps need to handle.

Motivation for cooperation by commercial companies

[wisse]

Many comments refer to Openstreetmap as an alternative to Google Maps. I guess that this is the motivation behind the cooperation of commercial companies. Facebook, Apple have no interest in Openstreetmap itself. Openstreetmap has humanitarian goals as well. For Facebook and Google it is no more than a tool to limit their dependance on Google.
It is fine that companies contribute to Openstreetmap. But it is important to keep in mind that this support will stop as soon as it is deemed to be unnecessary.

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor ...

[Freischutz]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.

I used an open source based mobile app (maps.me) for navigation all summer long, it was a perfectly adequate substitute for Google maps and it had real offline navigation capability whereas Google's offline capability kind of sucks. Google street view is a nice feature but when push comes to shove, I want something that can guide me to whatever house number I want without requiring a me to be network connected all the time. If I have trouble finding what I'm looking for once I'm in the general vicinity of my destination which usually boils down to being in the street but not finding the house I'm looking for I can usually solve that by asking a local resident.

Good free phone app?

[MMC Monster]

The last time I checked, the only free phone app had limited functionality, and you had to pay to unlock most of the features of the app.

Has that changed? Anyone have a recommendation for a free map app for iOS and/or Android that uses OpenStreetMap?

Re:Good free phone app?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have a recommendation for a free map app for iOS and/or Android that uses OpenStreetMap?

https://osmand.net/

Re:Good free phone app?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maps.me

Some projects need commercial motivation

[Tony Isaac]

Google has a huge number of employees (around 10,000) working on Google Maps. They are highly motivated to make it as accurate as possible, because they want businesses to advertise on it, and this advertising is highly dependent on accuracy.

OSM may be getting better, but can you really see them locating businesses or homes so precisely that it shows pins centered in the area of the buildings they occupy? Then of course there's street view...

A counter-example is Wikipedia, which has achieved a very high level of quality without commercial incentives. I guess we'll see!