Notices

While I fully and wholeheartedly agree to this statement,

... that second one is not true: OSMand is and probably ever will be (due to their development resources and resulting pace of development) out of reach. And it also is 100% Free Software, using multiple online and offline maps etc. No anti-features, except OSMand exists only for Android, is a bit overloaded with functionalities and consequently resource hungry (RAM & CPU).

Still, I had the same "Wow" impression as @peterleinchen after looking at the freshly updated Pure Maps yesterday night. Gorgeous!

Re profile icons: I guess I can go then for @olf's list. Its close to @XOleg (one icon difference), so its leading the pack. Next choice is row #3. I'll wait a bit and will see how voting is going tomorrow.

@olf: we will surely not catch google maps and will have issues with catching here. but osmand, maybe we can, at least in part. what are you missing most from osmand? is it already listed in https://github.com/rinigus/pure-maps/issues

I am not missing anything significant, i.e. PureMaps with OSM Scout Server is providing all the features I really need.

But comparing them with OSMand, I could generate a long list of wishes, among them:

• On-map indicators and buttons as widgets
• Different map modes (details, scaling, speed warnings etc. etc.) for driving, cycling and walking
• More compact map files (smaller download / storage size)
• Faster and better offline routing
• And many more

Just because you asked, no criticism implied.
Hence I will not file these at Github, because I do not perceive them as issues.

@olf, no criticism taken . I'll take it as a list and reply accordingly.

I will have to look at some point on what indicators/buttons do we miss. It maybe easy to add the most important ones.

Different map modes are coming and I have an idea on how to implement it. Now that's 2-phase process - one is to organize showing them in Pure Maps and the second one, for offline, to make these modes in osm scout server. Latter will be probably iterative and would require feedback on which data to show and at which scale. Here we will lack the scale of userbase, I presume. But one must try.

Compactness of datasets has been essentially a price we have to pay for the approach used by osm scout server. Since I offloaded lots to Mapbox and Valhalla, I have to carry parallel datasets as a price. That will be better for OSMand and others single-app developed dataset projects.

I am surprised that you find offline routing by OSMAnd faster. Last times I tried, it was always slower than Valhalla. Will probably have to check again, thanks for a tip.

@rinigus, how difficult is it to add read/record of tracks?

Reading tracks is there already. Irs under navigation, since its made for allowing you to drive/walk along a track. See GPX routers.

As for recording and showing just records, we have (insert difficult german name) sports application. Since its quite good, I preferred not to overlap with it.

fixed it for you

As far as free navigation applications for Android go, I think Maps.me is much better than OsmAnd. The interface is polished and easy to use for everyone, compared to OsmAnd's "everything but the kitchen sink" approach. For example, I wouldn't even dare to suggest OSMand to my parents, but they've had 0 problems using Maps.me for about three years now.

I also share rinigus' experiences, the routing in OsmAnd has always been really slow for me. I admit I haven't touched it since 2016-2017, so they may have improved their routing engine.

OsmAnd is available for Apple, though: https://osmand.net/, and so is Maps.me for that matter.

Routing speed: For those with the official devices, it should be easy to test the performance on the same hardware. Although, note that storage speed may play a role here.

Our routing (offline and default online) is provided by Valhalla. So, if we see some strange / slow results, we can file the issue upstream. In this respect, we actually have backing of dedicated developers working on routing engine.

The last time I benchmarked, OSMAnd was slowest, Maps.me was the next from the bottom, and OSM Scout Server was roughly similar to HERE and they both were the fastest.

Earlier, Pure/WhoGo/Poor Maps was asking for geocoding info together with the route at the same time. All the other apps mentioned above, were doing geocoding immediately while you entered the address. As a result, it may have seemed that osm scout server was slower - it had to resolve addresses first.

These days, Pure Maps finds coordinates of origin and destination as soon as you enter them. You , behind the scenes, are not even entering an address as a point, but location coordinates. That has many advantages and, as a side effect, benchmarking should be easier now.

As for simplicity of the interface, Maps.me was always simpler, indeed. But I must say I haven't really used any of them for a while, just occasionally checking when thinking about interfaces and workflows.

PS: Profile icons are updated now as described in https://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?...&postcount=572

Last 2 icons that are needed for now are "shortlist-on" "shortlist-off", as described in https://github.com/rinigus/pure-maps/issues/208 . These are for Kirigami only, so I can also bug KDE designers. But, if you are up for it, would be happy to get them.

I think SFOS icons are actually good for shortlist indicators. So, no need to reinvent anything there.