Cool. In July, ESRI and Google teamed up to lock down road closure data on their “community maps” program. The community appears to be governments feeding their data to Google and ESRI who then look after it for us, entirely for our benefit.
I really think there needs to be an effort to get drivers to use real community software and provide this data as a public good.
Two things I would love to see in the FLOSS mapping ecosystem:
1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.
2. A shared traffic data service. Any OSM map app could contribute to the same data, helping reduce Google's advantage in live traffic data.
Obviously, both of these would need privacy protections and be subject to user choice. And there should also be some requirement that both reading and writing be supported, to ensure apps reading POI data don't lock in new data, and to prevent apps reading traffic data from freeloading.
> 1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.
Would an AT Protocol app or extension meet this need and requirements? By being stored in a PDS, the data can be permissioned, owned by the user, and easily migrated and/or shared.
No, it should be local-first. Private and offline by default. There could certainly be sync integrations using AT, Dropbox, iCloud, etc. Those could even be separate apps, using the same API to access the data. But that sort of thing should be secondary and optional.
Does this work better than OsmAnd in any way? The latter has been around for a long time and just works. Perhaps the best feature is that maps can be downloaded and used completely offline. It's the natural map app on a degoogled Android system like Graphene.
The main downside relative to commercial apps like Google Maps is that you often need to input a full address instead of entering a business name or something like "Burger King near me."
CoMaps has been around for about just as long, as it is ultimately a fork of Maps.me.
OSMAnd is great for nerds but scares normies. I'm active in a travel subculture highly reliant on OpenStreetMap data, and I have only pissed my peers off by recommending OSMAnd; I eventually learned my lesson and would suggest CoMaps now.
I once looked into building an app which piggybacked on CoMaps/OSMAnd's data (saving the user from having two copies of their maps, and me from having to duplicate the UI to manage them), but found that in modern Android it was basically impossible for even the user to access data/files that "belong" to an app, without rooting the device.
Yess!
Please make an effort to improve underlying OpenStreetMap dataset:
https://streetcomplete.app - basic task-based, on-the-ground, app for Android
https://every-door.app - intermediate on-the-ground app for smartphones
https://rapideditor.org - AI-assisted mapping in browser
https://www.hotosm.org - task-based mapping in browser
https://josm.openstreetmap.de - advanced editor for desktop
Cool. In July, ESRI and Google teamed up to lock down road closure data on their “community maps” program. The community appears to be governments feeding their data to Google and ESRI who then look after it for us, entirely for our benefit.
I really think there needs to be an effort to get drivers to use real community software and provide this data as a public good.
https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/announcements/esri-helps...
Two things I would love to see in the FLOSS mapping ecosystem:
1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.
2. A shared traffic data service. Any OSM map app could contribute to the same data, helping reduce Google's advantage in live traffic data.
Obviously, both of these would need privacy protections and be subject to user choice. And there should also be some requirement that both reading and writing be supported, to ensure apps reading POI data don't lock in new data, and to prevent apps reading traffic data from freeloading.
A huge usabilitiy step would be the operating systems (and apps) just supporting geo links.
Geo links are from a RFC and are plain simple: geo:52.512974,13.420131
Clicking this link should open your chosen local map app at this position.
But it does not, actively sabotaged by big map app players who want only links to their app.
Waze got hugely popular by gaming their maps; people would install it just to get a high score. I wish the FLOSS mapping ecosystem would do similar.
> 1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.
Would an AT Protocol app or extension meet this need and requirements? By being stored in a PDS, the data can be permissioned, owned by the user, and easily migrated and/or shared.
https://atproto.com/blog/atproto-spaces-alpha
ATProto spaces: A new extension to ATProto that enables non-public data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379732 - August 2026
No, it should be local-first. Private and offline by default. There could certainly be sync integrations using AT, Dropbox, iCloud, etc. Those could even be separate apps, using the same API to access the data. But that sort of thing should be secondary and optional.
Does this work better than OsmAnd in any way? The latter has been around for a long time and just works. Perhaps the best feature is that maps can be downloaded and used completely offline. It's the natural map app on a degoogled Android system like Graphene.
The main downside relative to commercial apps like Google Maps is that you often need to input a full address instead of entering a business name or something like "Burger King near me."
CoMaps has been around for about just as long, as it is ultimately a fork of Maps.me.
OSMAnd is great for nerds but scares normies. I'm active in a travel subculture highly reliant on OpenStreetMap data, and I have only pissed my peers off by recommending OSMAnd; I eventually learned my lesson and would suggest CoMaps now.
OsmAnd is painfully slow, I keep it around just for unique features like transport routes and surface quality.
CoMaps rendering is almost instant and map palette is easier on the eyes.
A wzsabre(https://wzsabre.rocks) integration would be helpful in jurisdictions where that's legal
Neat, I was not aware of this mechanism. Is there any way to get map (tile) data from CoMaps into another app?
There are converters between different OSM formats and other formats (Garmin comes to mind). It depends on the target. E.g. here: https://www.mapfileconverter.com/free-gis-conversion-tools
Thanks, but I was interested more in the cross-app communication aspect rather than the data formats ( https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/wiki/Content-Provider ).
I once looked into building an app which piggybacked on CoMaps/OSMAnd's data (saving the user from having two copies of their maps, and me from having to duplicate the UI to manage them), but found that in modern Android it was basically impossible for even the user to access data/files that "belong" to an app, without rooting the device.
Thanks for the reminder that ContentProvider is the Android term I couldn't remember when I wrote my other comment here.
And the reminder that I should have added this to my list:
3. A ContentProvider app for OSM map data, so that apps can share the same offline map data.