There’s room for you at Comaps! It’s nice and it works on iOS, FOSS
I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
But, I don’t think Comaps is a realistic replacement for Apple or Google maps.
One: OpenStreet maps is missing a toooon of locations, businesses and residential addresses. Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder. That’s gonna instantly turn away 99% of people.
I still begrudgingly have Google maps installed on my phone… :(
I also have HERE Maps installed on my phone. It’s way more usable than Comaps and it’s not Google. But, it’s not FOSS and still owned by a big corporation. But at least it’s not (entirely) owned by the US (Magic Earth is). For me, I think HERE maps is a decent step away from Google.
I’ll still keep contributing to OpenStreet maps, hoping one day I can switch to Comaps.
I think at this point in my life I’ve added enough to my home town that I’m comfortable using it as my main map program, I also admit to having here maps as a backup, but I haven’t used it in a minute
I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
are the two related?
Open street maps is the back end for comaps and most open source mapping programs
Comaps, OSM And, and other apps use OpenStreet maps as their data source, sometimes as their only data source. So if the data isn’t in OpenStreet maps, it’s not gonna be in Comaps. Comaps is basically a frontend for OpenStreet map data.
thank you. why would I go for comaps instead of open street maps then?
OpenStreet maps is primarily a data source. I guess you could use the website: https://www.openstreetmap.org/
But they don’t have mobile apps.
I read that the one of the differences between Organic Maps and CoMaps is that the server side code for CoMaps is FOSS, while some of the server side code for Organic Maps is not. I hope I understood that correctly. I have Organic Maps installed because it was in the GrapheneOS app store.
If CoMaps has open server-side code, could I create my own map tiles with the best bike routes in my area and self-host them for myself and my friends? I find that google, bing, OpenStreetMap, etc all suck at recognizing good bike routes in my area and hand-curated routes are much better. I’d prefer to hand-curate the best routes color coded based on perceived safety and whether they are daytime only routes or acceptable for nighttime travel. Is something like this doable with CoMaps?
Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder.
THAT’S why i always struggled to look up buildings on Comaps! Hell, I wondered why the sesrch was so hard!
My main issue is the lack of traffic data. I wish I didn’t live in a car-centric society, but i do, so I need to know if the route I’m taking is going to be shit.
Holy wah… #2 is a deal breaker for sure. So sad.
I use OsmAnd which I think is also really good. I’ve heard nothing but good things about CoMaps too, like you said, which is a (seemingly well-justified) fork of Organic Maps.
If anyone’s curious about contributing to OpenStreetMap too to make the maps in your area better, I know a bit, and I’d be happy to answer questions, even if they’re just random curiosities. It’s a lot of fun.
How does one define and name an area?
Depends heavily on the editor you’re using. Editor-agnostic, however, is that under the hood, everything uses “tags”, which are effectively key–value pairs that the broader editing community has agreed mean something.
In most editors, you’ll draw the area in a sort of free-form connect-the-dots, and you’ll have a created a blank area once you close the loop (under the hood, this is defined by the placeholder
area=yestag, but seriously don’t worry about directly changing tags unless you’re experienced; just let the editor give you a list of items to choose from).Next, select the area, and your editor should present you with some way to search for what you want. Once you click that, the editor will apply the corresponding tags under the hood and will likely give you a list of properties you can change (for example, if you create a fast food restaurant, it might let you decide if it has a drive thru or not).
I’ll be able to give something a lot more specific once I know the editor, since UIs vary heavily. (Note which I didn’t know at first myself: if you went to OpenStreetMap’s website, made an account, and clicked “Edit”, then you’re using the iD editor.)
I thought this was a joke ad for a dev convention. Come on over and build something great at Comap(p)s 2026! We have a friendly competition where the team who builds the most feature-rich app all get programmer socks!
Are the paths reversed ?
This is why Apple users pay more to not use Google stuff…
Fuck this.
Default search engine? Google. Apple Intelligence? Believe it or not, also Google.
I don’t use any of those
Yes these ads suck, but they are not targeted ads based on your entire history of personal data which is google’s entire business. these are ads shown based on your current location in the maps app. theoretically everyone in your vicinity is getting the same map ads.
doubt
also, fuck ads. people are trying to find destinations, not be sold trash from some shitty corporation like mcdonalds or whatever. don’t care the purpose, or the reasoning… if there’s ads, it’s bought and paid for by some jackoff corp that can rightfully fuck off to high hell.
yes I agree, fuck ads, but fuck targeted ads even harder. The point is if you’re deliberating between apple and Google based on the ads, apple is still not as bad as google. it’s not a binary ads vs no ads issue.
it’s always binary fuck all ads issue for me
as i said, “if you’re deliberating between apple and Google” which is how this conversation started.
Wow they haven’t even made it good enough for me to use yet and they are already enshittifying it?
Comaps is available for iphones :3
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/comaps/id6747180809
also for others:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.comaps.fdroid/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.comaps.google
A little confused, is this basically the same thing as Open Street Maps, just in app form?
Yep it uses a selection of the most important data from OSM because the entire thing would be too huge to keep on your phone. You download the map in sections so region/city based but you can also just get an entire country which will be a few GB.
It can import/export bookmarks and record and import gpx tracks. Has TTS support and you can even edit things (like opening hours and stuff) if you have an OSM account.
They use OSM as source for maps, yes.
Not sure how much they add, aside from offline functionality.
Other apps add extra data sources.
Time to dust off my old folded paper maps.
I can sell some of the duplicates I have. I’m gonna be RICH!
You can buy up to date ones at the gas station still
What a piece of crap, this thing didn’t warn me about the bridge being closed and jammed up because of a car fire. Stupid paper…
how ever did people live and get around before the mobile spy tracking hardware was in everyone’s pockets.
shocker, your time isn’t really as valuable as you think it is…
I left on a trip to San Francisco and forgot my STREET maps but I did have an aviation map so I used that.
It did NOT have the freeway numbers marked. I got there looking for water towers and radio towers and bodies of water. I managed OK.
I prefer Apple Maps because it’s not ad laden but the coverage for businesses simply isn’t there, and it is pretty aggressive about populating businesses that don’t really exist (ie the business registration not the place of business, if they have one eg Plumber who doesn’t have a shop), don’t exist in the category (eg a factory isn’t a retail establishment), or just plain don’t exist. It also likes to ignore the actual road name for directions; instead of “take the exit towards A361 Burford Rd”, it says “take the exit to Diddly Squat Market” because some street view scanner picked up a sign and chose the wrong one.
If they start pushing ads, Google wins in “find me dinner nearby”.
My one deal breaker that keeps me on gmaps over Apple is the forced yelp integration. I refuse to install yelp and to get any meaningful information it tries to open the app.
Gmaps has a way better UX imo.
Yeah that also is awful. Can’t learn anything about the place without getting accidentally redirected to the App Store.
the difference with google is they’re collecting and montetizing all that data on you whereas apple is doing non-targeted ads.
Lol I used to think they scrapped the maps app entirely. Surprised it still exists. Who even uses it outside the US?
Like apple maps doesn’t suck enough already?
I wish it was better because that’s the map DDG pulls up in search. Wonder if those ads are going to show in DDG sesrches now.
Good. Enshittify to your heart’s content, until people realise that just sucking a different big tech corp’s tit is not the solution.
Surely this time their famous design standards will be applied to their UX.
Surely.
Serves anyone using that garbage right.
This was the only reason I used it.
On to the next!
It’s already been working like garbage lately. Wonder if this is related.
Honestly, if I want to find a local bicycle shop, and apple maps can help me find one without being obnoxious, then im okay with it as long as they don’t share any data about me with the bicycle shop. I want to shop locally and support my local businesses, rather than shop online.
“Stuffing ads into the Maps app” makes it sound evil, even if we have no idea how it’s going to look.
There’s room for you at Comaps! It’s nice and it works on iOS, FOSS
