I ask because I have tried both and neither consistently find destinations I need, and when they do, they don't route me there in the fastest or most efficient way possible. My first experience with Organic Maps, for instance, tried to turn what was usually a 4 hour drive into a nearly 6 hour drive. I used Google Maps to get there instead.

Google Maps is still the best navigation I've used, followed closely by Magic Earth, which gets the job done but still isn't all that great. I find myself resorting to Google Maps 9 times out of 10 because even Magic Earth will add 15-30 minutes to any trip. Even when I do use Magic Earth, I have to double-check it against Google's navigation just to make sure I'm not wasting any extra time or gas money on the road.

Also, a little gripe with OSMAnd that probably isn't too big of a deal, but OSMAnd can't find anything unless I download my state map. It tells me "nothing found within 5 miles" and gives me the option to expand the radius. But at 10, 15, 20, all the way up to 50 miles, it won't find I'm looking for. Like I said, not too big a deal since downloading the map of my state solves this issue, but it's still inconvenient and kind of a waste of internal storage space given that other apps can navigate successfully using online maps.

I'm wondering how any of you get by using OSMAnd / Organic Maps as I've seen people post on Lemmy that they do. Am I just missing something? Or are these apps really as bad as I think they are?

Edit: I should specify that I use navigation mainly for driving and Olive in the US. Seems like people biking / hiking in the EU have a bit of an easier time with some of these apps

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[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it's important to adjust your expectation when using offline navigation. Vehicle routing is a type of constrain programming, which is a very hard problem where the more computational resource your throw, the more accurate the result would be. The problem is mobile mobile device typically have limited CPU and RAM compared to cloud service. While there are many flagship devices with fast CPU and big RAM these days, osmand were probably designed with the lowest common denominator devices in mind which affect routing performance.

Instead of using the default offline navigation engine, you can actually configure osmand to use online navigation engine. By default, there are only two predefined option there, but you can add more. Try adding a bunch of them and compare which one produce the best routing for your use case.

[–] Acters@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

True, if you are doing it for privacy, then you should try to selfhost it. Else, it's best to use the provided online services. I usually only need the cross streets or highway exit. I can travel without constant GPS navigation. All I need is traffic(car crash) or the general location/plaza. For Houses, I just bring up the map route once I get to the neighborhood.(which is not as cpu/resource intensive to route.)