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I live in an area that was next to perfect when I first learned about OSM, so I had no real reason to contribute. I have seen their maps used by our public transport to show the way to/from stops (or even inside them on the particularly large ones).
This just reminded me that I can in fact contribute and I will check out the iOS options for doing so.
I do a lot, we also use the OpenStreetMap data for my work. I enjoy it but it's definitely lacking in some areas, and there's no app that really comes close to being a Google Maps replacement sadly.
Awesome, thanks for the post! I've been aware of OSM for a long time, but haven't thought about it in a while. After a couple of good app recommendations from the comments, I am surprised how far it's come. Definitely going to start using/contributing as much as I can.
I think I used to wardrive around and add open wifi hotspots to that system when I was like 18/19. I had Linux on a laptop and had gotten a crazy wifi antenna and a USB GPS module (along with some less than legal software to crack WEP encryption) and would drive around in my van looking for routers I could hop onto and map which ones worked and had internet.
I'm not sure what map software I was using though. It was some open source thing, and the name sounds really familiar.
Contribute! The info will bubble up into there other products as they all supplement and enrich their data from OSM if applicable.
I have, using OSMAnd on iOS. Here in Puerto Rico there are quite a good amount of map details already.
Omg great idea! Probably a stupid question but how did you contribute - through an app or from desktop, through the website?
I’ve contributed a lot of places around the country–though mostly missing cafés & restaurants because that’s what I’m interested in.
I have added some nearby forest paths to OSM and added some bicycle paths alongside roads which were already mapped, using OSM mostly for outside of road network since other maps do not show forest paths and the like at all while OSM has decent coverage
Yes, not only do I map, I show it to friends and how useful it is to me in specific situations. Bing and apple use osm data just like tomtom or many governments and many apps.
To me, spreading the word is more important than mapping. But I have to map in order to show how good it is. Moreover, it forces me to go out and hike and bike. That's awesome!
I had to make a full overhaul of my area but now it's awesome. I couldn't have done it without others, thank you guys as well!
Just have faith. We'll get there eventually 🙏
I use OsmAnd~. Mainly to analyze my skating routes (average speed, distance, etc) and planning sightseeing routes when on vacation.
For finding commute an app from local public transport is still the best and google maps are better than osmand, but for navigation on foot it's very good. And you can download the region earlier, so when you use it, you don't need that much data.
I found OsmAnd~ to not only be good on foot, but also on bike. It sometimes plans more aggressive routes than google which saves time (side streets for less distance, opposite directions on one ways...). Take this with a grain of salt though, because I ride primarily in NYC.
Pokemon Go uses OSM for the map data in the game. I've submitted park trails by tracing them in the satellite view and now the game has all the trails.
My girlfriend thinks it’s dumb and I’m wasting my time because Google maps and Apple maps and Bing maps exists but she just doesn’t understand open source.
Time to move on, she ain't the one. /s
You need a girlfriend you can recompile yourself from source!
I've used their map layers for a public data website. Worked great.
We update it a lot. We also have a product (for walkers in the British Isles) called WayMaps (used by a variety of walking web sites in the UK and also our own demo site https://waymaps.the-hug.net/) which uses the geodata from OSM and other Open Data to produce our own map tiles. We love OSM.