Comment by BeetleB
6 months ago
Someone showed me OSMAnd recently while we were hiking. I installed it as soon as I got home. Great for hiking.
Then last week I used it for navigation (on a phone with no SIM card).
Absolutely. Terrible.
Worst navigation app I've seen. Told me to make a turn at an intersection that did not allow turns. Then at another intersection, it told me to "Turn left", but the display clearly showed it going straight. I'm guessing that the straight road probably is angled 1 degree or something at the intersection and the app was viewing that as a turn.
For an open source Android app for OpenStreetMap data, I like Organic Maps, and it normally works great with locally-cached maps. I've had better luck with it than with Google Maps or Apple Maps on phones.
(Though, I should mention that twice in the last year I've had Organic Maps become hopelessly confused about where I was, and where I should go. Both times, it had gotten a good GPS location, but then got confused while being out for an extended period of time, like maybe it was dead-reckoning only after that initial lock.)
Regarding Organic Maps: I would recommend keeping tabs on what is happening there since this year. They seem to be having significant governance issues.
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/organic-maps-open-lett...
Short story: forget Organic Maps, use successor CoMaps or competitor OsmAnd.
https://www.comaps.app/about-us/
Thank you, that's interesting and a concern.
Do you have pointers to information about the governance and legitimacy of CoMaps?
(I see a mention that it's non-profit, but no statement about what kind of non-profit, not even on the donate page where that info is customary and relevant for US tax reasons. Also, I see no mention of who's who, nor how they operate.)
The closest I find is this:
https://www.comaps.app/support/what-is-the-comaps-history/
> As a result of the issues not being resolved, in April 2025, the community of former Organic Maps contributors created the CoMaps project, based on the Organic Maps open-source code.
If what that sounds like is true (that it does represent the community of contributors), it still will be important to have safeguards against someone taking over the project.
Or, if what that sounds like isn't true, that could be bad.
One matter that will have to be resolved with governance (if it hasn't already), is that there's what looks like an allegation that the CoMaps project is already tainted with code to which is expressly doesn't have license:
https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/1039#issuecomment-6...
A concern is that a funded commercial competitor could bankrupt a less-funded volunteer project with lawyer fees just arguing the merits of that.
8 replies →
I was vaguely aware of this drama but hadn't looked into it. After reading through your link, I've switched over to Comaps. I don't like lack of transparency in community driven projects. Appreciate the flag!
+1 for organic maps. Have used it hiking and travelling all over the world. Never had any issues with it.
Not had any GPS problems other than that time I was in an area where it was being jammed. Bloody Russians.
This is a really interesting feedback. I've used OSMand for maybe five years, and never had issues like you're describing. I've always felt that the search was absolutely awful, so I used Google Maps for that and then put the points of interest into my map. Nevertheless, I find the display particularly dense and confusing to configure, and so I also have been using Organic Maps lately, which may provide a simplified experience that's a bit more polished.
I wonder if there was some issue with the map data in the area you were driving in that led to the issues you experienced. I've used OSMand in Belize, Mexico, California, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine and had a good experience, especially with the offline maps.
> Told me to make a turn at an intersection that did not allow turns.
That's an OpenStreetMap bug, the intersection likely isn't marked as not allowing turns. If you put a note (OSMAnd calls them OSM Notes) on the map someone will fix it when they can.
On top of the OsmAnd user experience being a little rough (it can do a lot, but not gracefully) it relies on accurate OSM data underneath. So the best thing to do is at least make a Note on OSM, or edit it yourself, and mark that intersection as having a no-turns-allowed restriction.
Even Google is relying on user submissions to keep its stuff accurate these days, they just have money to pay editors and reviewers.
I get similar navigation issues with Google maps. I still use Google maps for driving because the live traffic is important to me, but other posts on here mention other apps with live traffic so I'll give them a try.
This happened close to my home on a road I've gone on almost every day. Waze never did that to me. I don't use Google Maps so I can't speak to that.