I’ve tried using it over the years but I never liked it because there was no information. So last night I looked at my local city and there is almost no information at all. I spent a few hours last night adding buildings and restaurants and removing incorrect items. It was actually kind of fun and therapeutic and I plan to do more of it tonight. My girlfriend thinks it’s dumb and I’m wasting my time because Google maps and Apple maps and Bing maps exists but she just doesn’t understand open source.
Edit: Apologies, I just realized this question is not Linux specific.
I use OsmAnd~. Mainly to analyze my skating routes (average speed, distance, etc) and planning sightseeing routes when on vacation.
For finding commute an app from local public transport is still the best and google maps are better than osmand, but for navigation on foot it’s very good. And you can download the region earlier, so when you use it, you don’t need that much data.
I found OsmAnd~ to not only be good on foot, but also on bike. It sometimes plans more aggressive routes than google which saves time (side streets for less distance, opposite directions on one ways…). Take this with a grain of salt though, because I ride primarily in NYC.
What Google does (I see it as remains from early days of how it became good) is it takes into consideration the route other people took. So if a lot of people do an illegal u-turn, there’s high probability you’ll be proposed such route too.
It works the other way round too. If a lot of people don’t take an optimal route for whatever reason, there’s less probability it’ll propose it to you.
OsmAnd just tries to connect the dots postman-np-problem style
I had the same experience. OsmAnd seems to be better for planning routes on foot than Google maps. Where Google Maps is clearly better is for info about businesses and stores.