Magic Earth is a proprietary app based on OpenStreetMap data. Its features include turn-by-turn navigation, live traffic information for route planning, speed camera warnings, public transport info, 3D and satellite maps, and the ability to download maps for offline use. The app may send position data to Magic Earth’s traffic provider to provide real-time traffic information, but the data is anonymized and only stored for 5 minutes.
This app is useful for users who require real-time traffic info, which is available in several countries.
Magic Earth is free of cost for all end-users but the developer also has a paid SDK for business partners. Because of this business model, they have decided against open sourcing the app.
Their privacy policy is too vague to really know specifically what they collect.
…This data includes IP-addresses, date and time of your requests, operating system type. We may also use real-time geo-location information of your device, search reference geographic position, routing and search preferences, crash reports and app version installed.
IMO Magic Earth just flat out works better than Organic Maps or OsmAnd. If OM or OsmAnd is even able to find the exact address you’re looking for, it can be buried in the results. Or in a lot of cases when I type an address all I get is block numbers. For example I search 123 fake st Miami, Fl, my results are “Address/Block” numbers and it’ll highlight a stretch of a road. That’s useless and inconvenient. People want something that will guide them to the exact address which Magic Earth does.
From a usability standpoint, Magic Earth is leaps and bounds a more effective mapping app than OsmAnd. OsmAnd can be borderline unusable if you’re trying to navigate to a specific address, often requiring you to settle for a cross street.
While I can’t speak to their actual privacy practices, they make some very strong statements about privacy. When enabling location permissions for instance, they claim to “never share your location. Ever.”
Talk is obviously cheap, but the fact that they produce such a better product than their competition makes them the only OSM app that is worthwhile for me.
Magic Earth appears to be introducing an annual subscription of $0.99, which is fair enough.
However, this change seems to have come with removing the ability to download the APK file directly from them. Their support originally provided me with a link to a download page for the APK upon request. However, this link is no longer working. Reaching out to their support once again to confirm if this is the case.
Support from Magic Earth has informed me that the APK version will only be unavailable for a short while due to app refurbishment. Seems like whatever upcoming changes they are making will not permanently effect the availability of the APK outside of the Google Play Store.
Despite not being open source, being able to get the app directly from them is nice for those who wish to avoid the Play Store.
Overall, my experience with Magic Earth has been very positive. The app has always worked well for me as a Google Maps alternative. No issues finding accurate addresses.