So you updated? And it’s no longer useful on the free version?
I haven’t updated the app yet. But worried that map updates will stop working on versions older than the new monetized version some day.
Can someone explain how magic earth (or really other non-google affiliated app) can possibly have accurate traffic data for navigation?
As I understand it, traffic data must be crowd sourced and the $8/year is going to turn most people away. Their download count is also quite low. Without a huge user base it seems impossible to have accurate traffic data. What am I missing here?
I suppose some companies with larger user base (maybe even google) are selling that data, so that’s the reason why it needs to be paid feature. Though from my experience, none of those I tried (google, here, magicearth) have good traffic data. At least I don’t take it as accurate as they are showing it. The main reason is - when bunch of drivers see traffic jam, they all take alternative routes, so alternative routs get slower as well. The difference is usually 5-10 minutes or so.
I bought the “premium” version of Magic Earth yesterday to fully test it out and holy crap this is such a trashy, poorly built app.
I think the Magic Earth data itself is good for a non-big tech company; however, at least on Android, the app was clearly written by bottom of the barrel developers that have obviously never tested their own app. I was driving somewhere today for the first time with magic earth navigation on my pixel 8 + GOS:
- the app crashed mid navigation
- lane position guide isn’t always correct. Once it told me to stay in the right lane, but I needed to turn left.
- outside of navigation, this is the single laggiest app I’ve ever used. It feels like it’s running 10fps when I try to scroll around or perform actions that trigger map panel animations.
- I think the driving view is way too zoomed in on the car. Given that I can’t fully trust the app’s lane guides, I really needed it to be further zoomed out to see where I was going.
Just absolutely terrible.
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The new update has completely ruined Magic Earth. It has gone from being an incredible app that I have used for years to something mediocre. I am disgusted.
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I paid for the premium license as well (it was cheap I guess) and I haven’t tried their premium features yet, but the last time I used Magic Earth, it crashed mid navigation for me as well. Though I don’t know if it’s a one-time issue or if it’s reoccurring.
They do offer a money back guarantee. It’s only $8 for 1 year for me. I’m undecided if I want to get a refund now. They may be small enough to not try to hurt them with refunds in the hopes that they improve the product soon. But at the same time it feels bad to fund obviously shitty developers.
Already in progress in CoMaps, and I believe there is a working beta apk available as well. Should be finished and part of the main release in the coming months I imagine. You can track the progress on their Codeberg.
If I’m imagining the dashcam feature correctly, that is, it allows you to use your phone as a sort of dashcam while driving, there is a FOSS app that turns your phone into a dashcam called Alibi.
That is just to say other alternatives likely exist for these features if anyone wants them.
I checked it out. I think the OSM underlying data is too crappy to be useful, at least in my city, but their overall apps quality is much better than Magic Earth. What Magic Earth data gets right vis OSM-based solutions:
- knows about street addresses and how to route to a street address
- is much better at recommending “popular” locations. ex. if I search for “ABC”, I’m much more likely to be looking for a popular “ABC community center” place rather than just some “ABC street”
I did parse the CoMaps implementation on their traffic branch and their use of https://traffxml.gitlab.io/. It looks like pretty brilliant stuff, but CoMaps still requires a critical mass of users to contribute traffic data and/or for other apps to contribute their traffic data (they won’t) otherwise it won’t be very useful.
Even in their replies to play store comments, they say they’ll forward requests to developers, but IMO this is mainly management issue, and they are the ones to blame. Developers can not make and release what they are not told and allowed.
I will not ask for refund as it seems it’s still working well for the main things - navigation and real time traffic info. And I hope they’ll improve it during the year. But there is no dash cam function, at least not as it was before. If I understood it correctly, now I have to turn on recording manually for every drive. Also, I’m not sure it can detect actual traffic signs (mainly for speed limit), as it did before, I need to test it more (actually to pay attention)
Alternatives are not great, and ME might still has the best privacy policy, after osmand and OM/CoMaps, but this now is really a downgrade