CoMaps (FOSS Navigation, Organic Maps fork)

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The same can be said about every FOSS project ever. However, some users are looking for a (at least mostly) working app and not a new job.

I think PG should at least note that OSM data is highly unreliable for some areas in their recommendations. OSM will not work well for a lot (most?) of areas in NA from what I read.

That reads like a manic obsession. I don’t think it’s the end of the world if Google gets some of your driving data. Maybe don’t rely on it for every time you drive, if you can, so they won’t know all of your driving habits. If your area/driving habit allows for it, it might also be better to not put in your exact driving destination and to force close their navigation app so that they don’t know exactly where you live.

How are you fully avoiding Google anyways? Fully removed Google play services? If not, Google can probably partly tell how/when you move around based on the change in your IP/network connection that the Google Play services require as a permission.

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LOL. Avoiding the “do everything evil military technology global mass surveillance company” is far from a “manic obsession”. You are on a privacy forum and you are making light of someone wanting to avoid one of the most malicious surveillance companies out there?

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Occasionally using StreetComplete when you have a spare minute is not a second job. Also, the people following Privacy Guides’ recommendations are looking for an app that is private, so what alternative do you suggest?

Where did you read that?

How much of an issue it could be may depend on who you are. But if you think someone spending a bit of extra time on navigation to avoid surveillance or proprietary software is a sign of mental illness, I don’t think anyone can say anything that’ll convince you otherwise. You’re probably on the wrong forum.

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Hey there! Thank you for all of the incredible work that has gone into you guy’s new project and the Organic Maps app before it. I think CoMaps looks really interesting. I am sorry to hear about the situation and concerns about Organics Maps, as it was an open source maps app that I really liked and preferred over OSMand because of the more cleaner and minimalistic UI. I hope that things get better and I wish you guys the best of luck on the CoMaps project.

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OK, I got that idea from an unreliable source, but it suggested 10-30% coverage in cities nearby, but 70-95% in West/Central Europe urban areas. I was referring there specifically to address data. If it’s any indicator of map completeness, I was looking at OSMstats - Statistics of the free wiki world map and Europe looks like the leader in “contributors per area” and per population.

Maybe I just got unlucky with my city and I’ll think about helping to add some addresses.

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Volunteer mapping can be an addictive thing and I will have to admit that I am probably the wrong person to chime in here as I have been contributing to OSM for over 15 years. And, for what it is worth, I live in and almost all of my mapping has been in North America.

You state that maybe you “just got unlucky with my city” and you are thinking about adding some addresses. Go for it! You will help yourself and you will be helping others!

There is definitely a network effect: If the area is reasonably well covered for road and address data then more people will use OSM. And more people using OSM will lead to more things being added or corrected.

If your city is poorly covered by OSM it likely means that there are few or perhaps even no local OSM contributors in your area. Where I live things are getting pretty well mapped but that is not how it aways was. Even just a single individual contributing to OSM can have a big impact.

For example, when I move to my current city about 10 years ago there was almost nothing in OSM for the area. I made a point of walking all the streets within a few miles of my house verifying street names, noting speed limits, collecting address data, etc. I achieved several things: I learned my new home town. I got much needed exercise. And I made OSM very usable for finding addresses and to a lesser extent finding other points of interest. I notice now that more people use OSM based apps in my area and are adding and updating businesses as the change.

I did this “old school” by walking the area which took be about six months. Nowadays government generated address data is more available and you can “armchair map” to get addresses in. You do have to verify that the data is properly licensed for inclusion in OSM and that varies from state to state in the US. Fortunately, many states are not contributing to the National Address Database (NAD) which is public domain. If your state is a contributor, you have a head start. Even if your state does not contribute to NAD, the data might be appropriately licensed anyway so it is worth checking your county’s GIS department to see what they have and what the license is.

One thing you might miss by importing data from a government database rather than walking the streets and looking at things: Locations of automated license plate readers. Turns out that the Deflock project is using OSM for the data store and contributing to OSM.

You might even find, as many have, that volunteer mapping can be an addictive hobby.

Here is the weird thing as far as I am concerned, I still contribute to OSM but I don’t actually use it that much. A while back I read that the spacial memory and abilities of people who habitually use navigation apps atrophy. Thinking about it, I realized I personally had lost some of the navigation abilities that I took for granted before I got a smart phone (or a car with built in navigation). So I have made a conscious decision to simply look at a map before I leave to figure out a route and possibly some alternative route options then I do not reference a map or navigation app while driving. I certainly am better at knowing where things are at than I was a year ago and I have a better “feel” for when and where I might be delayed by normal traffic. Yes, I don’t know where there are backups due to a collision. But I still seem to get to where I want to go and get there at the time I wanted to be there.

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90

I hope they can improve public transport. For example in London there is only train but lacks information about tram and bus. I can’t see how I can add bus routes information on it. (I know we can edit places.)

Is it possible to include live train or bus schedule? Especially when these information are open to the public.

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True! Some time ago I had been adding only places that I needed. Then i felt like “if I am already here, why not add more”?

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You lowkey got me hooked on trying to map out my city. It does feel a bit mind numbing, as there’s a million things to note for every intersection. This is from yesterday alone via street complete:

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I live in Canada, which seems to be much crappier for street data and I don’t believe we have a NAD-like service here. From what I read, OSM takes addresses from the municipalities here, but that address format does not align with what OSM expects. Even though my area does have addresses in OSM, a lot of those addresses are wrong or are vastly incomplete. An an example, I don’t live in an apartment, but my address doesn’t exist in OSM and is just covered by my neighbor’s address. I would need to go to osm.org and edit in my address as street complete doesn’t present this as a quest.

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I got started before apps like StreetComplete existed so I just use the JOSM editor which does not try to give me things to work on and couldn’t care less if an area was mapped in fine detail. I find that trying to map everything in detail in one area at one time is just too overwhelming for me.

So I generally do things in passes. First pass is to assure the street names are correct and the alignments reasonable. As long as I am there, I add speed limits. I might add stop signs and traffic lights during this pass too. I figure that pass will help people with getting to a known spot with a reasonable estimate of travel time.

My second pass is to get street addresses. Very time consuming either by walking or by importing from appropriately licensed public data. Now someone using a navigation app can find where they want to go.

Final pass is to add buildings to make the map look pretty and add turn lanes, etc. Now the driving directions from navigation app can details about which lane you want to be in at the next intersection, etc.

There are people out there who want to map individual trees, fire hydrants, utility poles, benches, etc. I do that too to some extent but only as an afterthought if I am already mapping something else. I figure most people use OpenStreetMap via a navigation app and focusing on things that make those better gives more “bang for the buck”.

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It is not only irrelevant. Lets not forget about that scandal with ads inside Organic Maps app and their behavior calling users “paranoid”. So I feel like CoMaps definitely should replace Organic Maps.

That time ago i felt so furious. I donated them not to see privacy-intrusive integration or get “paranoid” tag.

P.S they also like to delete commets so here is archived: scandal and insulting tag

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StreetComplete also has this thing called '“Overlays” (second icon on the top from the right), and one of them is “Addresses" overlay, which allows you to add missing housenumbers (eliminating the need to go to osm.org)

Alternatively; there is also an Address Quest, but you need to go in “Settings” / “Quest selection and display order” and enable “What’s the house number of this building?”, “What street is this on?” and “What kind of building is this?” to use it that way.

Incidentally, you can also use that menu to reduce (or increase) the number of Quests, e.g. by deselecting ones you find less important.

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Yeah, I figured all of that out already. StreetComplete has been great for giving me a reason to go out and map out my city. I’ve spent a lot of time on it.

For that address case specifically, it’s not that my home wasn’t there at all, its just that the address wasn’t correct, so it didn’t come up as a quest in StreetComplete.

As I was looking around, I found https://private.mapquest.com/ to be the most complete privacy-respecting, OSM-based map app. Unfortunately it’s a $4/month subscription, but their address data is really great for my city in Canada. Much better than OSM’s data alone as I believe they expand it with some proprietary data.

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Yeah, that’s why I suggested “Addresses Overlay”, as it can correct incorrect addresses too.

It might be open data too… For example, if you use OsmAnd (obtained from F-droid, preferably), https://opensupermaps.com/ extends OSM data with publicly available address sets (for Canada in particular) from https://openaddresses.io/

CoMaps is also considering to integrate such open address datasets too (see #723 - feat: Add external address data - comaps/comaps - Codeberg.org for progress).

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98

Do you publish the signature hash somewhere so we can appverify the installation?

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Do you publish the signature hash somewhere so we can appverify the installation?

Yes, it is published in README.md of source code repository (which is what is shown by default by Codeberg).

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Wow, opensupermaps is what fixed the addresses for me although it’s unfortunate that it only works with OsmAnd as the app looks incredibly dated and runs noticeably slower than comaps + organicmaps.

From the looks of it, osmand was written mostly in Java which is way too slow for the type of computations that are needed from a mapping app.

What I really wish for is comaps with osmand functionality.

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That’s in the same place as the apk though to verify properly we need to get the apk and hash from different sources eg the apk from codeberg and the hash from their website (or vice versa).

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I believe they are other places listed to get .apk from (listen on their website – e.g. IzzyOnDroid or Apple Store; which would make them separate locations from signature), but I do get your reasoning and suggestion.

I’ve forwarded your suggestion on #561 - Add copyable and AppVerifier compatible certificate signature to website too - comaps/website - Codeberg.org

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… and it has been added to website at Download CoMaps | CoMaps

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