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For more on this, and why I think we shouldn't advocate for W3W, see: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-what-three-... for theoretical reasons and https://w3w.me.ss/ for some practical examples.

https://plus.codes seems much better, but sadly it uses random characters instead of words, which is much harder for humans to remember ( https://xkcd.com/936/ ), so I don't think it will ever catch on.

That's pretty sad in my opinion, is the whole concept of using words to encode a location now owned by w3w? The implementation seems trivial

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> is the whole concept of using words to encode a location now owned by w3w?

Essentially, yes. There are patents involved, and W3W are rather litigious so if you have a competing idea/implementation that doesn't infringe be prepared to expensively defend that position.

That hasn't stopped some good parody versions existing though, perhaps the best known being https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/ [reporting in from hoes.abortion.cumshot.dope!]

> sadly it uses random characters instead of words

It was explicitly designed in that way [1]. It does make harder to remember, but I think the memorizability constrains other goals too much.

[1] https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation...

This seems like a missing UX feature. Give the NATO (or regional) phonetic alphabet for the code, have a synthetic voice saying those characters, and maybe have an audio modem.

>it uses random characters instead of words, which is much harder for humans to remember

Do we really need to remember them, instead of just writing them down?

What I dislike of plus.codes is that they have replaced GPS coordinates on google maps. GPS coordinates are multiplatform where only Google maps seems to be able to decode those fancy codes

I get both latlng and plus codes when selecting a location on the android games client.

Plus codes are an open standard, osmand at least also supports them.

So the problem is not Google maps but the other proprietary app. Thanks for the heads up

Pluscode is a trademark. The actual standard is called "open location code" and is unrestricted - https://github.com/google/open-location-code/

Is there any contiguous system available that doesn't have issues at edges? Sure lnglats are tedious, especially crossing the 180th, but at least you know that -180=180 and -179~=179. Memorability useful but not necessary?

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