I think the issue with Organic Maps is the lack of real-time traffic data (unless that’s changed).
That said, Organic Maps routing seems good enough without it. I occasionally compare routes from Apple Maps, Google Maps, my car’s nav, and Organic Maps. Organic Maps hasn’t given a route that I’d say is unreasonable.
Something about Magic Earth unsettles me. It appears highly polished, but free. It’s not clear how they’re making enough money to stay afloat.
Also, crowd-sourced realtime traffic is only as good as the crowd it’s sourcing from. I’m speculating, but I somehow doubt there’s a big enough crowd using Magic Earth where I am.
I think I once read they sell it (including the real time traffic data) for use in car infotainment systems and other specialized hardware that needs GPS navigation.
Looking through the list of data collected, most of it is anonymized. For now.
What concerns me is that their privacy policy only says they’ll publish variations to it on their website - no mention of proactive notification to users.
For me, that’d be a hard pass, but others might not share my concerns. It definitely looks like a nice, polished alternative to the big G.
It’s not clear how they’re making enough money to stay afloat.
Yes it is. It is basically marketing for their embedded products which they sell as whitelabel apps for makers of cars, satnavs and other GIS applications.
I think the issue with Organic Maps is the lack of real-time traffic data (unless that’s changed).
That said, Organic Maps routing seems good enough without it. I occasionally compare routes from Apple Maps, Google Maps, my car’s nav, and Organic Maps. Organic Maps hasn’t given a route that I’d say is unreasonable.
Ah, for realtime traffic, check out Magic Earth.
Something about Magic Earth unsettles me. It appears highly polished, but free. It’s not clear how they’re making enough money to stay afloat.
Also, crowd-sourced realtime traffic is only as good as the crowd it’s sourcing from. I’m speculating, but I somehow doubt there’s a big enough crowd using Magic Earth where I am.
I think I once read they sell it (including the real time traffic data) for use in car infotainment systems and other specialized hardware that needs GPS navigation.
Looking through the list of data collected, most of it is anonymized. For now.
What concerns me is that their privacy policy only says they’ll publish variations to it on their website - no mention of proactive notification to users.
For me, that’d be a hard pass, but others might not share my concerns. It definitely looks like a nice, polished alternative to the big G.
Yes it is. It is basically marketing for their embedded products which they sell as whitelabel apps for makers of cars, satnavs and other GIS applications.