MapQuest's app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

Copy-pasting my own comment:

For using OSM on Android (edit: and iOS):

• I use OsmAnd, which is free on F-Droid. It's very feature-rich, and I can customize it pretty much exactly how I like. There's a good tutorial for beginners here.
• However, some people prefer the simplicity of the app CoMaps, which is available for Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux (Flathub). It's a fork of Organic Maps that arose over disagreements with Organic's governance (see: open letter).
• There are also specialty apps like Alpi Maps for more specialized uses of OSM (in Alpi Maps' case, hiking).

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For contributing to OSM on Android:

• I use Vespucci for more complex edits on Android, so things like adding features. (The rough iOS equivalent is Go Map!!.)
• I use StreetComplete for a more trimmed-down, gamified experience. It isn't a power user experience like Vespucci, but it's often really useful if you're just on the go and want to make small but meaningful contributions.

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The easiest way I've found to contribute local information is the iD editor on desktop; it's the one that pops up if you click 'Edit' on OpenStreetMap.org. It strikes a good balance between user-friendliness and power user stuff. For full-on power users, JOSM is a good option. And the easiest way to contribute in a limited way is StreetComplete, which will ask you questions about existing features (like "does this traffic signal have a walk button for pedestrians?")

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The OpenStreetMap Wiki is a great general resource for using and contributing.

Use CoMaps. It's a privacy-first app that pulls their map data from OpenStreetMaps. If something is inaccurate on the map, you can edit it on OSM and it'll populate to most map services. I've made changes and seen it pop up on Google Maps too.

I downloaded CoMaps from F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/), just to avoid the Google Play Store. Slowly de-Googling my life...

I don't know if there is an iOS version. Apple is the OG evil company, long before Google got rid of their "Don't Be Evil" motto, so I avoid their products. Now I'm trying to get off Android stuff too, but there aren't many alternatives right now.

EDIT: Someone else linked a website for CoMaps and it does have an iOS app. Also an Apple and Linux desktop program. No Windows though.

FYI, here are the PrivacyGuides recommendations:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/maps/

CoMaps is a great app for iOS and Android. Cleaner interface than OsmAnd. FOSS and uses open street maps.

But but we at OSM have interminable discussion about how to map several flavors of lgbtq stuff. Surely that must count for something?! Also here is an OSM project to show these places https://pkoby.github.io/LGBTQmap/#13/51.4979/-0.0887 And here's a map with just the rainbow pedestrian crossing https://mapcomplete.org/rainbow_crossings

I was about to pivot to CoMaps but then saw this mapquest thing taking off.....

One way or another, Google is out. GrapheneOS is in this week.

It also misses a ton of roadworks in my area, so it's quite literally unusuable. More than half the time it will try to route me along a closed road

Joke's on them, my savings was wiped out years ago.

For that final one, there was a post earlier about how Flock lost contracts only for city councils to replace them with a different surveillance provider.

It'd be better to divorce Flock from the real issue: i.e. "Neighborhood surveillance is pushing forward".

We can't let rat-bastards who would sell out their towns and cities pretend the grievance is just against Flock and not against all of the surveillance.

Theyre also continuing to extort Venezuela for its oil, and theyre still illegally holding the country's leader as a hostage.

And their continued multi billion dollar funding, arming and propagandizing of the most genocidal apartheid state this side of the berlin wall coming down

AI bubble is getting closer to popping

i knew AI was a bubble but i hadn’t heard the other part. what’s happened besides the end of “tokenmaxxing”?

Trans people losing rights

V-Coding and forced detransition/involuntary conversion torture

the FCC will start going after news reporters who run stories that make Trump look bad even when they’re objectively true

I haven't seen anything specific about this, just that dozing diaper dementia donny the daughter diddler goes off on toddler-like tantrums anytime anyone isn't stroking his ego...

AI bubble is getting closer to popping and wiping out literally all of your savings

So short the market and profit from the downfall. What's the problem?

They have plenty of other evil motives besides just distracting from the Epstein files.

No that makes sense, I hear many Americans refuse to use GPS, because no one can tell them where to drive, they drive where they want and which way they want. Not according to what some sissy computer tells them.
FREEDOM! 😋

Could someone please add tag douchebag_name ?

TIA!

OSM is CoMaps' data source.

In my experience OsmAnd is way better than Comaps.

In OsmAnd I can type in a business name or an address and not only will it bring up the correct address but it will allow me to navigate. I can do neither in Comaps. Also OsmAnd has CarPlay/Android Auto support with the paid version.

Haven't tried it, but it's based on OpenStreetMap, so I guess it also calls it Lake Ontario.
Why is comaps better?

I haven't tried comaps, so maybe it has similar features, but the OsmAnd profiles and plugins are great. Driving, hiking, biking, walking, basically any form of transportation can be used and with plugins and overlays show info pertinent to each method while excluding extraneous info.

And if you get it from fdroid or compile it yourself(?) it's the pro version with more features for free.

Needs Android Auto support

Yes it is, sorry my mistake.

yes, good app

Worst product name ever.

Also, crappy app too. I appreciate that they are trying, but it has been crap for years.

Tried it again a few months ago. The spoken navigation wounded like it just huffed a can of butane. Real low, slow and fucked up sounding.

Google Maps is notoriously bad with cycle routes. It has sent us over sand paths where you can't cycle at all, when better routes are available. In cities, OSM also gives better routes.

My experience as well. I use gmaps only for incity navigation if I need it. It will happily reroute you to some bumfuck nowhere to save a millilitre of gasoline.

People think I'm crazy for insisting that google maps sucks if you actually understand how to use a map and traffic reports, but it's true.

Now that you mention it, I have family in the Bay Area and had an incident with them too!

I was visiting and had a small econobox rental (I forget the exact model). I said hey, we should take this thing up to someplace with a lot of giant redwoods. I've never seen huge trees! And so I looked around on the map and saw a Big Basin Redwoods State Park that sounded promising.

The first leg turned out just great. But after touring the park, it was still early afternoon and I thought maybe we can go to Santa Cruz and have dinner before swinging back? The GPS at that point said I basically needed to backtrack down the same road for a ways, but that sounded boring. I was a tourist. I wanted to see new sights! So I had it choose an alternate route down China Grade Road. I still remember that name. Omg. It was a logging road with aggressive dips and switchbacks with huge drops if you missed one.

As a bit of a epilogue, a couple of years later, I was reading "The Never Game" by Jeffery Deaver, and at one point, the protagonist is hunting for someone at Big Basin. After not finding them, he decides to check along a nearby logging road. Hey I've been there man! Don't do it!!

And the new mnemonic is HOME-O

There’s enough of a non American user base to counter it.

Fair enough. Open source software is something that continually improves as it gets into the hands of more people and they all voice their concerns. That’s the whole point. It’s software for people and not corporations.

Both Lake Ontario and Gulf Of Mexico for me and I'm in the USA.

that is probably playing both sides as much as possible like google does (Lake America if you enter it from US, Ontario otherwise)

Alaskans already asked for that like 50 years before though.

The US is fascist.

I'm convinced that the most optimal way forward is for it to split. Why the fuck do California or New York have to keep financing a bunch of fascist mouthbreathers with genocidal tendencies? I don't think it's possible for the country to recover as one, whole swaths of it literally need cult deprogramming.

I don’t think he knows about CoMaps pip.

Organic Maps is still a thing. I see that they had an update a week ago on the app store. CoMaps was a fork of OM and some (most?) of the devs left, but OM didn't stop being developed.

The last time I used an OSM based map was yeaaaaaaaars ago so I can't say, but I also can't imagine shared lists are well supported in that ecosystem? I might be wrong of course (but everyone knows stating a wrong thing on the Internet is how you get real answers)

The other issue I've been running into is that Maps is unfortunately still the best way to get business data since anything else requires businesses to add their info to it. On Maps I can find store hours, menus, phone numbers, reviews, etc.

You know it's owned by Google so it's really weird that it's still showing that

Thank you

It is.

Personally, I've just started downloading the local app... it sometimes has outages that haven't been put into Google yet and as a bonus you can usually get things like tickets right there.

Maps is still hard to beat for smaller transit systems that might not have a dedicated app with navigation, though...

Taking a stand against fash trash corpos will necessarily require some level of inconvenience, in the best case.

I'm giving Comaps a try. I try OsmAnd every few months and always have issues with it, but Comaps has been solid (for all of 2 round trips so far lol).

Very mixed feelings on System1. I was digging into a Firefox forks and dismissed Waterfox because of the connection. Totally willing to believe they're better than Google (like Bluesky to Twitter) but that's such a low bar.

Anything that doesn't require self hosting or Linux knowledge?

I'm not self-hosting anything. I'm not into all that.

I looked at it. It's inexpensive. The last thing holding me back is changing the email to my proton one for 100 accounts across the web.