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.
I gave up on it after finding the only useful front end on android is 100$ per year
My company actually partially sponsors an OpenStreetMap mapathon through our volunteering initiative. I’ve probably put in around 3 or 4 hours this year contributing to maps, though specifically developing countries with incomplete mapping and recent natural disasters.
Edit: I am US based.
I've not contributed to the main one, but I have for the humanitarian osm team, you get recently disaster stricken areas and copy roads and buildings and the like
It's a cool project, but I've used it, and man is it not going to be a replacement for Google Maps anytime soon, as much as I'd like to get to a FOSS alternative. I can't use it to navigate to a building down the street lol
It's not dumb to contribute though because it's already okay, so it can only get better than okay, and the way that happens is contributions
Yeah I have made many changes in my area. I also find it kinda therapeutic as well.
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 use organic maps, based on openstreetmap, it has more information than i expected but still much less than google. It’s almost on par with apple maps where I live, both significantly worse than google.
It can be a fun project to map out the area you live. I've been working on that over the past couple years and it is fun.
Over in Europe, OSM Is much more mapped out in my opinion. It would be good to see North America catch up.
Omg great idea! Probably a stupid question but how did you contribute - through an app or from desktop, through the website?
Started contributing aswell when I saw that my city was really outdated and it's actually really fun to do it
Yes
I contribute as much as I can, mostly through StreetComplete. I see it as a hobby when it isn't too hot/cold outside, to take a walk around my area and map houses and addresses. I find it super important
I second StreetComplete. I actually had quite a surprise when I first installed it - I expected to have a lot of mapping work ahead of me in my somewhat rural area, but most of it had been mapped in a lot of detail already.
Long time ago, I did several villages where I grew up. This was before satellite images covered that area, so I did it the old fashioned way with a GPS, cycling up and down every single street, writing down name and surface in a notebook. Walked around every field, every patch of forest, creek, etc. It took years, but I've literally been everywhere in those villages. It was fun :) When aerial images came I could do private buildings too.
Contribute! The info will bubble up into there other products as they all supplement and enrich their data from OSM if applicable.
OsmAnd actually works pretty well in my experience, at least in the UK. It's not always up to date or fully-detailed but it's far from useless and I appreciate that. It's my primary map program on my phone.
Use it and love it. I live in the countryside and google just doesn't bother capturing footpaths. Using OSM (I use OpenMultiMaps for Android) I can see contour maps, much clearer transport maps, footpaths, and pretty much anything else I need. Occasionally the notes people write have been handy too, for example for marking footpaths that are poorly maintained or turb into a swap in rain
I love the idea of OSM, been trying to use MagicEarth on iPhone which leverages OSM, but I run into similar issues that your describe. I’ll be honest tho, I never even thought of trying to contribute, may look into it as a little hobby in my free time.
I've used their map layers for a public data website. Worked great.
Yes. It is the most up to date map in my area, in point of fact, other maps copy their data from osm for my area.
I’ve contributed a lot of places around the country–though mostly missing cafés & restaurants because that’s what I’m interested in.
I decided to give it a try over the weekend on a road trip, through the apps Organic Maps and Go Map!! I really liked Go Map!! except that it crashes occasionally, and won't restart until your reinstall it :( loosing all the GPS tracks and unsubmitted data :(( If it was more stable, I'd recommend it to everyone.
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