Google was great because it surfaces the most relevant results, but more ads infiltrate everything it surfaces results with the largest wallets who rarely are the most relevant. On the bright side it's good news for Apple whose business model isn't reliant on ads. While Apple can't yet beat Google's mapping technologies, I think instead it's hoping in the long run Google will ruin itself that people will prefer an inferior technology but one that values their privacy and relevancy.
Openstreetmap sadly has some relatively big flaws (this is coming from a regular openstreetmap contributor).
* The copyleft license ODbL probably will mean that there never will be a huge adoption. The situation simply is different with a geo database compared to software or one art piece.
* Vandalism very easily goes unnoticed, as there is no review at all for edits. If something that went wrong is found, reverting is very hard to do, often left to some expert group that only does that.
* Tags indicating when things were last checked are hardly in use. So the database contains tons of information that might not be true anymore or might never have been true.
* The data model lacks persistency, the tags of a shop might go from a node to the building area it's in or otherwise effectively loosing the history. It's very hard to find out where something really came from (editor and source).
* The data model also lacks a good way of dealing with areas (especially ones with holes in them), multipolygon relations are a hack barely supported in editors that often lead beginners to feel overwhelmed. On the other hand there are no curves, just straight lines, because bezier lines are supposed to be too confusing for beginners.
* All the data is in one huge database, not split up into layers.
* There are hardly any volunteers in America. It's an import desert.
Complete agree, it was stupid to move to the ODbL.
* vandalism
I've only seen once instance of serious vandalism -- I reported it on their IRC and it was updated within a few hours. And this was a mass attack by 4chan. I don't know if there's a practical way around this system. If people were vetted and had to wait before changes were accepted I think it would hurt contributions.
* Last use
I agree but all maps have the problem of getting outdated. Unless mapping is completely automated (drones+CV+ML? get on it HN) how would you avoid this?
* Inconsistent tagging
Yeah this sucks but you can deal with it at the application level usually
* Multipolygon areas
I haven't used OSM much recently but I know they did a decent overhaul with the site and the editor (the old editor was some flash tool I think). Dealing with complex polygons in software sucks so I understand why this is an issue. They should provide simple guidelines (CCW for the outside polys, CW for the inside polys), reject invalid polygons and provide a suggestion to go on IRC if they are having issues.
* Bezier curves
This is not a good idea. Why would you want to support bezier curves in map data? Its un-needed complexity. I could see support in an editor that then just creates an approximated poly line.
* One huge database
OSM is supposed to be a generic data set for many purposes. Some people might want hiking trails, others might want all the bus stops in a city, others may only want all the highways in a country, etc. Creating a system to extract and serve specific data would not only be complex it would be expensive. You'd need a lot of compute time. There are tools and tutorials for extracting what you need from the data set. There are also localized data sets available for many places (country, province/state etc).
* American volunteers
Yes its really strange that this is the case. Its impressive to see some of the places in Europe (like Germany!) and how rich the OSM data is and how active the community is compared to here. There are local meet ups in cities though where people get together and map stuff. If it interests you, you can always participate.
>I agree but all maps have the problem of getting outdated. Unless mapping is completely automated (drones+CV+ML? get on it HN) how would you avoid this?
Maybe you can't, but that means you're always stuck offering an inferior product compared to those closed solutions which companies can pump money into.
> The copyleft license ODbL probably will mean that there never will be a huge adoption. The situation simply is different with a geo database compared to software or one art piece.
From OSM:
> You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. If you alter or build upon our data, you may distribute the result only under the same license.
How is this not an absolute necessity for the long term success of the project? Without it, someone can just slurp up the data, add their own, and then shut OSM out.
I think if there was no share back requirement you would still have one project that would be the social nexus of the data. Forking and closing the database just to add some trails in Wyoming would not make much sense (as a silly example).
In essence, careful respect for the license isn't the main driver for contribution.
I think it would certainly lead to more competitors, people would take the data and do their own value add, but I think it is quite an open question whether they would be able to actually become considerably better databases.
(I'm roughly indifferent to the share back requirement. I don't think it is needed but given how much support there is for it in the community it isn't worth discussing over and over)
It's a bit more complex. The licensing restriction is really just a restriction that data you mix with OSM data also needs to be ODbL, because other data under ODbL can't be incorporated back into OSM. Mixing two geodata sets is a pretty common thing to do, but you can't do that as easily with OSM data because of ODbL (I think it has something to do with the crediting).
Some companies have been interested in using and contributing back to OSM data, but didn't go further, because of the license.
Why do you think a fork that lacks the advantage of a free license can become a threat to the continued existence of a project?
By American volunteers do you mean github contributors or importing map data? How does one import map data? I'm American and have always been interested in GIS.
Edit: Parent likely meant mapping data using supported smart phones, converting data, and uploading it alongside notes or photos. Their beginners guide [1] covers it.
Import desert means that datasets were imported (especially the TIGER dataset in the US) which prevented local communities of mappers to grow. Fixing up broken import data isn't so nice for beginners.
If you want to help you can just register on openstreetmap.org and begin editing things in your area you know are missing/incorrect. There's also a beginner's guide in the openstreetmap wiki: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guide
I couldn't agree more. I'm just back from 6 months travel around South America. The OSMAnd+ app for Android was invaluable. Complete offline maps (and Wikipedia content) for every country. The information was usually up to date. It was extremely simple to create an account and start contributing back.
So yes, love OSM, will probably hardly use Google Maps from now on.
Speaking of which, have you tried typing "openstreetmap" into Google? None of the top links actually take you to the homepage where the maps are displayed.
I'm quite shocked. For lack of better explanation this seems like foul play.
I've tried this in a logged-in session, an incognito tab and even in TorBrowser: in all three cases the first result was a link to openstreetmap.org, and the next few hits linked to subdomains, the Wikipedia article or pages explaining the concept. So i guess it's just you.
I've just tested this again, and it seems to only happen when I type the query directly from my Chrome url bar (I'm using Google UK if that makes a difference). Same on Incognito. I get the "Copyright" page at https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright and NO LINK to the homepage anywhere on the front page of results, which seems nuts.
OpenStreetMap is great, but it's a bit like Linux among OSes - one source of data, but many implementations and not a single one to be dominant enough to be a real threat to google, hence no street view and the search is lousy just to name a few significant drawbacks.
That's because OpenStreetMap is just that -- a source of data. It doesn't aim to offer the kind of utility you expect. Rather, it can serve as a data source for developers that might want to take on that task. The ODBL license they use has some unfortunate terms and the committee seem more interested in license-wanking than progress which is why I think there haven't been a lot of major players creating rich and powerful applications and services with it. For instance, mixing your own proprietary data with OpenStreetMap data isn't allowed. This hasn't been a complete show stopper as some great companies like MapBox have popped up, but I do think its had a chilling effect in general.
Another analogy might be ARM vs. Intel? Lots of small players don't have to go toe-to-toe with a giant in order to be effective competition. I agree though that it needs to keep up momentum to be competitive, a lot is still missing.
In my experience, Nokia Here and Apple Maps both trounce Google Maps when it comes to routing. Google still has an edge on POI, but other than that I never touch it.
Does this even make sense for mapping? If there is a single correct result then that is the only thing I want. If there are multiple possible results I want to see them all. This is a problem best suited to complete databases rather than probability based search algorithms. Adverts can only make this even worse than it is now.
Yup. I also think users are more inclined to use Apple software on Apple products then Google software on Android products. I think Android (globally) will go to whoever can create the best user experience for low end devices.
Either way it's a red flag that Google software is becoming less and less desirable on the consumer market.
Your post relies on the unsupported idea that the advertisers' listings are not relevant. Google has never allowed advertisers to just buy their way to the top. Yahoo did, and they lost. Google's algorithms require ads to get clicked on.
That's actually the tradeoff I'm making. The street I live on isn't even in Apple maps (I've filed a ticket), but I'm willing to use it for that tradeoff. Google is definitely collecting way more information and seems to be able to create higher quality maps a lot faster, but there is the trade off of being inundated with ads.
>I needed a bigger kick in the butt to try something else
At least in Germany Open Streetmaps has vastly better maps than Google Maps. On a global scale Google or Bing maps are very consistent while OSM depends on the local community, but they are well worth checking out.
For satellite images Google Earth is hard to beat, but Bing has good images as well
OpenStreetMaps is already excellent, but it seems like it could do with impetus in some areas. For what it's worth, these are some gaps that occur to me:
* Standardization of the model for mapping on multiple levels, and with 3D, and integration of that with the editors.
* Finding standardized ways to test, approve and automate maintenance of data consistency. There seems to be a lot of ad-hoc script editing, like someone writing a script to make a one-off edit of the global dataset to do a spelling correction. If that's going to happen, it should have pre-approval, and probably be integrated into an official, periodic checking and consistency process. Along the same lines, I'm not convinced small malicious or mistaken data edits will be picked up as quickly as they should be. I think most of the tools and structures are there to build the map, but not necessarily to maintain it.
* Doing more to link the OpenStreetMap.org site to the projects using the data. i.e. more clearly positioning the site as a data repository, and place to find ways to consume the data, and less as a toe-to-toe competitor to Google Maps.
* Pushing forward in links with wikipedia, preferably forming a connection with the structured/geographical data on wikipedia (if it's possible to find a license which is compatible with both projects, and wouldn't lock in either party). Having more eyes on the data should help to prevent bit rot.
* Finding hardware to automate data collection for Mapillary (the Streetview equivalent).
* Improvement of search/geocoding algorithms - to try to fill in patchy street data information (i.e. detecting sequences in house numbering). Then using those algorithms both to improve the geocoding capability, and to prioritize where data most needs to be collected - a handful of house numbers are vital for a major 5km road through the centre of a city, but they are far less important for a 30m cul-de-sac.
* Finding ways to have more area based mapping for pavements, cycleways, shared space roads, pedestrian crossings, public squares etc, as an additional, progressive enhancement to the line and dot model for footways, highways, etc. Something which can be used to provide additional information in city areas where that sort of low-level mapping is useful/necessary, but isn't necessary elsewhere (clearly the whole world will never be mapped in the detail that you'd like to map central London, or one particular central railway station)
In general, trying to develop policies to encourage the database to be maintained, and data collection to be managed, in a way which makes it easy to consume the data in a structured way.
Glad to be corrected if I'm wrong, or ignorant of progress.
Consistency problems can be detected quite rapidly, for example http://osmose.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ . Automated fixing of them is generally pushed back against socially though. I think for good reasons. One is that a data user can do the automated fixes if they want to, so it's better to put human eyes on all the issues so that the ambiguous ones get fixed correctly. This is perhaps a conservative pov, the less ambiguous cases can probably be safely resolved with automation. But "obvious" consistency problems are the easy ones for consumers to deal with too.
Do you mean getting Wikipedia to use OSM more? The basic scheme of tagging wikipedia and wikidata links on OSM objects seems pretty complete on the OSM side (there's just lots of things that could have tags that don't).
Area mapping for highways is well enough sketched out, but I think there isn't a natural way to derive a graph, so it ends up being visual detail and a low priority (I don't care about having it in my area so will spend ~0 time on it).
The search on OSM.org (nominatim) is slightly pedantic, approximately for the reason in your last point. Pelias and Photon both bring stronger search to OSM data.
I'm probably being unreasonable on the tools, you're right that that Osmose is excellent.
> Automated fixing of them is generally pushed back against socially though. I think for good reasons. One is that a data user can do the automated fixes if they want to, so it's better to put human eyes on all the issues so that the ambiguous ones get fixed correctly. This is perhaps a conservative pov, the less ambiguous cases can probably be safely resolved with automation.
I just think that sporadic, automatic editing of the global dataset, without much (or any) pre-approval, doesn't make sense. Better that there was more effort put into coming to formal decisions, and that those decisions, when adopted, become official and consistently applied. To take a trivial example, if someone's going to collapse MacDonalds, Mcdonald's, McDonald's, "MacDonald's Restaurant" and 15 other permutations down to one spelling worldwide, that shouldn't be a decision to be made by one individual, posibly reversed if they really get out of line or end up making some bad mistake, and applied only once or sporadically, it would be better IMO to be debated up-front, approved or rejected as a formal policy, and maintained.
On wikipedia, I mean finding ways to couple their structure/geographical data with OSM, for instance if you have a building article on wikipedia, with structured data about construction date, architect, location, possibly 3D model, and similar and overlapping information about construction date, outline, entrances, etc on OpenStreetMap. Probably you'll never have an automatic coupling, but you could for instance have joint efforts to set shared conventions for the structure of the data, and constitency tools to point out where data is available in one but not the other, or disagrees between the two.
That's the intended process for automated edits, with a pretty high bar for what should be carried out. This does result in sporadic fixing, as the global edits don't get done. A big issue with such edits in general is that there are restaurants using the other names that aren't a McDonald's, so 'fixing' those ends up breaking the data. In practice, the suggestions in the web editor end up being pretty powerful, so fewer wrong names get created in the first place.
I don't really see the need for shared conventions with the Wikipedia stuff, as long as each project ends up settling on a convention it shouldn't be a big deal to reconcile just those 2 conventions. Wikipedia/Wikidata are anyway probably the better place to put endless trivia.
The process for the automated edits just seems to be too ad-hoc to me. For instance, you could argue mass edits should require an API key which is granted by positive approval through an automated, formal process, made using formal guidelines which are polished and adjusted over time. Any automated edits should have a link through to the formal discussion in each commit.
Excellent point about the suggestions through the web editor, though, perhaps that will be enough. As a matter of interest, do you have any idea who decides what items are in the editor (for instance, if tags are disputed or inconsistent)? And are the suggestions done by popularity, or are they manually decided?
On shared conventions, it's just, do you have separate start and end construction dates, or combined, do you write that 1930-34 or 1930:1934, how do you handle approximate dates, are you going to write C19, 19th C, 19th century or 19C, and so on.
In general I just think you need more active decision making, and a process towards consistency in the data. It's really tough to consume data from a geographical database where everything is up in the air.
A technical policy doesn't stop me from doing it semi-manually in JOSM (it'd merely be annoying to geographically segment some edits and space them out over time). So it ultimately depends on good behavior anyway.
The preset system in iD is driven by the data here:
The process looks at popularity and then tries to do some standardization from there, suggesting a most popular form when less popular forms are encountered. There's a shorter list of committers, but I would say it's overall reasonably open to contributions.
My point with the Wikipedia is who cares. If you know Wikipedia does 1930-34 and OSM does 1930:1934, the details of converting one to the other will tend to be a lot simpler than any interesting thing you are trying to do with the combined data. It's a bunch of annoying cat herding to get a little bit of hypothetical convenience (hypothetical because what interesting thing is presently held back by the different forms?).
Google Maps are practically unusable when not in lite mode (which they turn off on every occasion), so I don't use them. And even when I try, the UX is horrible and features are broken.
Luckily, most of my map needs are met by a local competitor (mapy.cz). They are not perfect, but are still much superior, at least for what I want from maps.
Coincidentally, their Android app (which supports offline maps) got really slow few months back. I wish I could easily downgrade to an older version (as I did with online Google maps before I gave up).
Oh, they sure do. Just a few years back the company behind mapy.cz had a majority share in search in Czech Republic. Somewhat of a rarity in Europe, maybe even (latin writing) world. Google ads were everywhere - radio, tv, billboards, etc... not to mention online.
Well, I'm sure Google Inc would love to dominate but I believe their fall from grace is evidence Google engineers don't want to. Or maybe I'm off base. Nobody dominates forever.
I love how every advertising group thinks: "Oh, growth is slowing, time to inject more of the thing that people don't want! That'll surely make things better!"
Google is on track, albeit slowly, to the AltaVista destination.
When in 1999, before the first collapse, the competitors to Google were inundating users with in-result ads, crazy load times and odd results. This was pushed by the stock's need to show constant revenue growth.
Google now is adding more ads, configuring the ads in-line to increase clicks (yes, they are 65% relevant), integrating an obtuse implementation within Maps, and so forth.
DuckDuckGo becomes more viable each day as an alternative.
I can't deny any of that, and DDG has a better UX, but Google is still by far superior when it comes to returning relevant results. I do a lot of Googling for my job (and life), and nothing I've tried seems to compare to Google's results yet.
Absolutely. Google is far and away what I fall back to when I need to really find something. That being said, I use Bing and DDG as my defaults to see if I get good enough results.
Even though I have the latest version of Maps installed I never use it and it is disabled and blocked from the net. Osmand works great, aside from when it tells you to get on a freeway; it doesn't, and will say something like "veer right", which has caused some headaches. Searching within osmand for an exact address also sucks. I have to enter Los Angeles for cities such as say, Reseda, when it should know better. Thankfully the fdroid apk AddressToGps fixes the search perfectly, allowing you to enter an exact address which then uses a google api to pull up the exact coordinates which is then seamlessly handed off to Osmand. All you do after is tell it to map the route. Without addressTogps, osmand is practically unuseable.
GEO Bookmark, fdroid repo, is also an excellent companion ap to osmand.
Between this and the total redesigns that keep making things harder to use for no reason, Google seems to have no interest in people actually using their products. I’ve never seen a single company with more cases of “geez this stuff is all great if you’d just leave it the hell alone…”.
For that matter, didn’t it take Steve Jobs to connect the dots for them so that they’d even consider putting their maps on mobile phones? They’re lucky they’re even in this business.
> For that matter, didn’t it take Steve Jobs to connect the dots for them so that they’d even consider putting their maps on mobile phones? They’re lucky they’re even in this business.
It feels that ad space is in a downward spiral. The more space these companies convert to ads, the less the ads are worth and the more space they need to convert. Instagram in particular seems to really be falling into this cycle.
Plus the more obnoxious ads get, the more people [1] will go to adblockers.
[1] Or businesses, e.g. Opera has an integrated adblocker now, and Firefox blocks tracking while in privacy mode (and they plan to expand this to the normal mode, IIRC).
I already see plenty of logos on google maps here in Japan (mostly convenience stores), even without searching anything. I guess this news is only regarding results?
Japan has had those for quite some time. I presume it's because convenience stores are a really big thing in Japan and there isn't really anything like a universally recognizable generic convenience store sign.
If it weren't for the traffic conditions and satellite images, I would not be using Google Maps anymore - it's been incredibly slow on both the Android app and the web. Takes about 30 secs of loading until I can finally switch on satellite images.
Is it change for change's sake that bloats so many company offerings after a while?
I think it is the marketing belief that unless they show change over time, people will think the product abandoned.
You see this in the FOSS world as well. I think there was a presentation posted recently by a former project lead that had his project co-opted and forked because he refused to release a new update until he deemed it "ready".
In osmand you can add either/ or both, an underlay or overlay map. MS earth works as a good google sat imagery replacement. I like osmand because it can be totally offline if you choose.
I think that Google Maps is becoming more and more advert-based regardless of this; Once a year I run a little "banger rally" thing for friends of mine and do most of the planning of the route using G-maps. It's impossible now to search for something such as a landmark, instead you get redirected to businesses with either the word landmark in their title, or businesses that will make a landmark for you (funeral directors, etc). It wasn't like this a few years ago. I know, I know, it's business- and advertising-driven, but I can't help but feel that we're starting to get both ends of the stick here - we're the product and our whereabouts are tracked all the time, but on top of that we get advertised to constantly as well.
Problem is I've not found a solution that is as smooth or useful on Android?
I found myself rarely using google search partly because of paid ads already. Looks like they are making decisions which will push me away from another product I enjoyed.
Sometimes I'm glad that I'm old enough (38) to have lived a significant amount before the conveniences of the modern internet. The idea of getting around without online maps isn't strange to me and I have the skill from back when it was the only option. So when google maps starts getting too bullshitty it's easy for me to do without it.
One time a few years ago a (younger) friend laughed at me for writing down directions on a piece of paper. But the piece of paper didn't have to be mounted, I didn't have to turn on a screen to use it, navigate to the right app, worry about the screen going off after not using it for a minute, etc. The piece of paper was the most usable option by far.
Apple Maps' exclusive access to use the lockscreen, along with (IMO) a better UI when following directions, make it my go-to when driving despite the bad reputation it has on the internet.
Mapillary needs some sort of camera you can buy for $50-150, put on the top of your car, and take decent resolution 360 degree photos. Then the coverage in major city areas would get completed in a few years.
Who knows. If Google's revenue slips, investors get upset and make leadership changes.
It sounds like leadership is out of ideas if their only ones are to increase the size and frequency of ads on existing apps. That's a bit sad considering the talent they have there.
However, Google could choose to serve Google ads on the same origins as their web pages if they wanted. This sponsored pins will surely be hosted by maps.google.com, I should think.
As the phone manufacturers are the same as the danguses adding ads everywhere, the only other option I can think of is to proxy your traffic through another service that does server side ad blocking, and that seems like quite a headache if you want to, for instance, unblock certain content.
Well if you don't run a firewall, I use NetGuard, you could run adguard. The payed version will protect all your aps whereas the free one just protects a few browsers (which can be done easier with the browsers themselves).
I get absolutely livid when I'm using Waze as my navigation and an ad pops up and takes up the entire screen WHILE I'm navigating. Awful implementation, I immediately X them, don't read them or anything.
I tried out Waze for some trips in the last few months after hearing all the hoopla about it, and honestly I don't see why people like it. It's kinda cutesy, I'll admit, but the only useful feature it has is that users can inform each other about speed traps. Aside from that, it's really kind of a PITA to use, and also it doesn't seem to do any kind of re-routing for slow traffic or have any indication that you can take alternate routes and how that will affect your travel time. On Google Maps, there's frequently places where it'll show you alternate routes in gray, and how they'll affect your time ("3 minutes slower"). Waze doesn't have that at all. I was really disappointed, so I just went back to Google Maps.
There is a lot of hate here for something we haven't even seen yet. While I aknowledge that they could screw this up badly, my first reaction was positive. I've done a couple of road trips recently where a pin for every Peet's, Starbucks, IHOP, and Chipotle all along the route would have been welcome.
I have a good response to this, but first: Are you interested in a home-cooked meal? Perhaps a Golden Corral(R) "Awesome Pot Roast" could get your stomach rumbling like no other dumpster food could! Choose from one of our great buffet options! Green beans, carrots, chicken, we've got it all!
OK, joking aside, here's my issue with intrusive advertising: sure, they justify the advertising by saying it's to pay for the service, even if you'd be willing to pay for a subscription service that would remove the ads. But instead, you get ads for Golden Corral while you're really looking for the "Oreo Madness" now at TGI Friday's! Today's special includes hot wings with a creamy Ranch dressing, an ultra hot spicy sauce, and fresh celery sticks! Choose from one of our new Bacon Burgers, like the All-American Jack Daniel's Burger. Thirsty? Try our handcrafted cocktails like fresh Peach Sangria!
No thanks. I hate all those places, so why would I want to be spammed about them while I drive?
If I could configure it for my personal favorite places like Panera, then sure, that'd be a useful feature. But I don't want to be spammed about a bunch of crappy businesses that I have no interest in visiting. And I have zero faith that a company that makes money by advertising would allow me to configure their app to only show places I'm interested in, rather than places who pay to put their logo on my map screen.
