Wow they haven’t even made it good enough for me to use yet and they are already enshittifying it?
Comaps is available for iphones :3
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/comaps/id6747180809
also for others:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.comaps.fdroid/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.comaps.google
That article slurps Apple’s nutsac for having such a great moneymaking idea! Fuck ads. Tired of everything being a vessel for marketing.
I hope your blue bubbles become water marked with adds!!! 😈
There’s room for you at Comaps! It’s nice and it works on iOS, FOSS
It’s my back up for when I have no cell service
I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
But, I don’t think Comaps is a realistic replacement for Apple or Google maps.
One: OpenStreet maps is missing a toooon of locations, businesses and residential addresses. Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder. That’s gonna instantly turn away 99% of people.
I still begrudgingly have Google maps installed on my phone… :(
I also have HERE Maps installed on my phone. It’s way more usable than Comaps and it’s not Google. But, it’s not FOSS and still owned by a big corporation. But at least it’s not (entirely) owned by the US (Magic Earth is). For me, I think HERE maps is a decent step away from Google.
I’ll still keep contributing to OpenStreet maps, hoping one day I can switch to Comaps.
I read that the one of the differences between Organic Maps and CoMaps is that the server side code for CoMaps is FOSS, while some of the server side code for Organic Maps is not. I hope I understood that correctly. I have Organic Maps installed because it was in the GrapheneOS app store.
If CoMaps has open server-side code, could I create my own map tiles with the best bike routes in my area and self-host them for myself and my friends? I find that google, bing, OpenStreetMap, etc all suck at recognizing good bike routes in my area and hand-curated routes are much better. I’d prefer to hand-curate the best routes color coded based on perceived safety and whether they are daytime only routes or acceptable for nighttime travel. Is something like this doable with CoMaps?
I think at this point in my life I’ve added enough to my home town that I’m comfortable using it as my main map program, I also admit to having here maps as a backup, but I haven’t used it in a minute
I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
are the two related?
Open street maps is the back end for comaps and most open source mapping programs
Comaps, OSM And, and other apps use OpenStreet maps as their data source, sometimes as their only data source. So if the data isn’t in OpenStreet maps, it’s not gonna be in Comaps. Comaps is basically a frontend for OpenStreet map data.
thank you. why would I go for comaps instead of open street maps then?
OpenStreet maps is primarily a data source. I guess you could use the website: https://www.openstreetmap.org/
But they don’t have mobile apps.
Holy wah… #2 is a deal breaker for sure. So sad.
I use OsmAnd which I think is also really good. I’ve heard nothing but good things about CoMaps too, like you said, which is a (seemingly well-justified) fork of Organic Maps.
If anyone’s curious about contributing to OpenStreetMap too to make the maps in your area better, I know a bit, and I’d be happy to answer questions, even if they’re just random curiosities. It’s a lot of fun.
I thought this was a joke ad for a dev convention. Come on over and build something great at Comap(p)s 2026! We have a friendly competition where the team who builds the most feature-rich app all get programmer socks!
Are the paths reversed ?
I mean… maps has been kinda shitty for years!
It’s still better than Wayze trying to sell you burgers and fries at every stop sign… but you need to tap the search box like 3 fucking times to input shit, and why is that? So you have ample opportunity to see Crapple’s list of “suggestions….“
And have you noticed that you need to zoom down to AntMan scale to see the names of some businesses in a shopping center, and yet others are virtually visible from orbit? Could it be that businesses that pay Apple stick out like a sore thumb, and business that don’t virtually disappear? Nah… Fucking Apphole behavior.
It’s time to face facts, Apple stopped giving a shit about the customer years ago. Before their headquarters was literally a Bond villain’s donut you could drive through their parking lot and it was a sea of shitty rust buckets, executive parking lot underground.
I was giving serious consideration to going Android again rather then buying a 2K+ tablet… but then I need to buy a new watch and phone at the same time to have a slim chance of interoperability so it’s basically a wash.
Fuck Apple.
Unfortunately it’s the best option in Germany after Google threw a tantrum over privacy laws here. However OpenStreetMap is getting better.
No one is talking about the real sin that Apple makes and that sin is having a crappy buggy operating system that has parental controls break and also blast Bluetooth speaker volume to max volume the moment you pause it and start it again. It is a subpar operating system and it’s a piece of garbage.
This is why Apple users pay more to not use Google stuff…
Fuck this.
Default search engine? Google. Apple Intelligence? Believe it or not, also Google.
I don’t use any of those
Yes these ads suck, but they are not targeted ads based on your entire history of personal data which is google’s entire business. these are ads shown based on your current location in the maps app. theoretically everyone in your vicinity is getting the same map ads.
So… never read Apples privacy policy huh?
Maybe but you give them an inch and in a few years the ads will be targeted
doubt
also, fuck ads. people are trying to find destinations, not be sold trash from some shitty corporation like mcdonalds or whatever. don’t care the purpose, or the reasoning… if there’s ads, it’s bought and paid for by some jackoff corp that can rightfully fuck off to high hell.
yes I agree, fuck ads, but fuck targeted ads even harder. The point is if you’re deliberating between apple and Google based on the ads, apple is still not as bad as google. it’s not a binary ads vs no ads issue.
it’s always binary fuck all ads issue for me
as i said, “if you’re deliberating between apple and Google” which is how this conversation started.
Time to dust off my old folded paper maps.
I can sell some of the duplicates I have. I’m gonna be RICH!
Nah fuck that shit. If I have to, I’ll whip out the ole Garmin and upload the latest maps to that bitch and go.
Dude someone mentioned this the other day and I pretty mu h went all in on Garmin GPS since then.
I want to use comaps and organic maps and magic earth and all that but they just don’t work well for me but the Garmin is on point.
Plus they say they don’t sell your data. But even if that’s a lie I bought it used off Craigslist so its “Johns” data now.
You can buy up to date ones at the gas station still
What a piece of crap, this thing didn’t warn me about the bridge being closed and jammed up because of a car fire. Stupid paper…
how ever did people live and get around before the mobile spy tracking hardware was in everyone’s pockets.
shocker, your time isn’t really as valuable as you think it is…
I left on a trip to San Francisco and forgot my STREET maps but I did have an aviation map so I used that.
It did NOT have the freeway numbers marked. I got there looking for water towers and radio towers and bodies of water. I managed OK.
I am willing to bet there is still a radio in your vehicle, and very likely a local news station with traffic and weather reports.
Back to the basics: Start carrying a yellow pages book with you so that you can find addresses of various businesses. If you need restaurant descriptions, you need one of those tourist guide books too.
I prefer Apple Maps because it’s not ad laden but the coverage for businesses simply isn’t there, and it is pretty aggressive about populating businesses that don’t really exist (ie the business registration not the place of business, if they have one eg Plumber who doesn’t have a shop), don’t exist in the category (eg a factory isn’t a retail establishment), or just plain don’t exist. It also likes to ignore the actual road name for directions; instead of “take the exit towards A361 Burford Rd”, it says “take the exit to Diddly Squat Market” because some street view scanner picked up a sign and chose the wrong one.
If they start pushing ads, Google wins in “find me dinner nearby”.
My one deal breaker that keeps me on gmaps over Apple is the forced yelp integration. I refuse to install yelp and to get any meaningful information it tries to open the app.
Gmaps has a way better UX imo.
Yeah that also is awful. Can’t learn anything about the place without getting accidentally redirected to the App Store.
the difference with google is they’re collecting and montetizing all that data on you whereas apple is doing non-targeted ads.
It’s already been working like garbage lately. Wonder if this is related.
Honestly, if I want to find a local bicycle shop, and apple maps can help me find one without being obnoxious, then im okay with it as long as they don’t share any data about me with the bicycle shop. I want to shop locally and support my local businesses, rather than shop online.
“Stuffing ads into the Maps app” makes it sound evil, even if we have no idea how it’s going to look.
I think this is great news.
Apple has been providing an amazing service for free for too long and they deserve to finally make some money.
Is that you, Tim?
Can you please bring back the mini, at least every few years like the old SE? I missed my chance to buy one.
Best I can do is the SE/30, in peach, tangerine, and cerulean.
Finally somebody here standing up for the little guys.
they deserve to finally make some money
On top of the literal $100 billion a year they already make? The poor souls.
finally make some money
first to reach 1T
those poor scrappy startups, they need to finally turn a profit
That’s a good point, but is it free? Can I use it without giving Apple any money, or do I need to have an Apple product to run it on?
I’m pretty sure you can run maps on a hackintosh so I think you can run it without giving Apple any money.
Can I run it on my Apple IIe?
