Comment by unit_circle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unit_circle | Hacker News Reader

Try OSMAnd.

I started using it because it allows you to download huge areas as vector maps for offline use. But I find myself slowly using it more and more. The only things missing that keep me using gmaps are search, reviews / places, and directions that factor traffic (not a biggie tbh). However, I've been playing with mapbox and, without any prior experience whatsoever got a traffic overlay working within a few hours with a free account. I believe they provide the other parts (search, routing & places) too, I just need to figure out how to plumb them in.

I have tried a ton of map apps and IMO OSMAnd has all the pieces to be a serious competitior, at least for technical folks, with just a little bit of commercialization... The gmaps moat is not as deep or as wide as it seems.

If you are an OSMAnd dev reading this, I will happily pay a monthly fee for this stuff if provided as a cost plus package... I get a ton of value out of the app already, already pay for it and hate Google maps more with every passing day.

I love OSMAnd too and used it in places where Google Maps was subpar, e.g. in India or places in the middle east. But also all over Europe when roaming data was still expensive and recently when I crossed Canada east to west by car. The benefit of the map data coming from the open street map community paid off massively where there was little commercial interest for Google to map the area in detail.

I also love that you can edit and add POIs to OSM right from within OSMAnd.

On a side note: If you like to improve details of OSM, have a look at Street Complete, a gameified app to add details of your area to OSM. One of the tasks is to check/provide opening hours of nearby facilities.

I use it for cycling, but honestly it's pretty frustrating. Searching for Japanese place names is pretty difficult, and since most place names are only listed in the local language but its TTS can only handle one language at a time I have to choose between "turn right onto " and "右に回って、明治通り", whereas Google will give me "turn right onto Meiji-doori".

It doesn't help that I'm stuck on an old version for the "turn on screen when approaching a turn" function, which is actually Google's problem but still frustrating.

Definitely frustrating. I wonder how hard it'd be to add.

The English TTS is not great compared with anything else I've tried, but it's serviceable

I find Windy Maps feels more polished, and quicker at routing. It's cycling routing seems to work better for me than Google maps too. I just wish it could load in GPX files like OsmAnd can.

Wow, Windy Maps is _beautiful_. Yes, goes to show that OSMAnd has lots of warts but it's extremely featureful.

With OSMAnd you have to make a significant investment in UI customization. It won't really get prettier but it will start to fit you better than anything else.

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