Open navigation rocks

A brief look into Organic Maps, an OpenStreetMaps map navigator

GLOSSARY: OSM(OpenStreetMaps) G(Google) GMaps(Google Maps)

For a while now, I have been using a mobile application called Organic Maps, which is an open, offline map application with routing and information features. Pretty much like GMaps.

INFO: Organic Maps is the app that I use for my navigation. There are other
      FOSS apps that use OSM which I do not mention.

Features

Offline maps, zone map data has to be downloaded before use
Routing is objective. It gives you the quickest route and timing given the information it has, it does not cheat on you
Search is objective. It gives you what it has, it does not prioritize businesess or hide information arbitrarily
Routing is good but not perfect and is not the sole reason the app exists. Also, it misses routing including the bus network, for which you have to choose your route by hand
Uses OSM data
All features not listed above

NOTE: some map zones can be heavy (~200 MB), but they cover large zones.
      e.g. In Spain, Comunidad de Madrid is one zone
NOTE: by not cheating I mean that it does experiment with the user, as GMaps
      does.
NOTE: I will cover OpenStreetMaps in a later post.

Privacy

This is an old one.

There is no reason for telling G where I am going or which places I am looking for, even less reason to be shown only the businesses that G chooses.

Furthermore, the maps are not streamed to your device (they have to be downloaded manually). Therefore, you do not spend data when on a cellular metered connection (which is usually the norm when using a navigation app) and there is no live connection to other servers telling them what places you are trying to see or where you are going.

NOTE: in order to look inside a zone in the map, you first have to download it,
      and each map can be as big as a couple hundred megabytes

Discovery

INFO: there is a button to search at the button, but definitely does not clutter
      your device bottom with the search bar by default

Since the app works pretty much as a paper map with added GPS capabilities, it makes you look at the bigger picture of your route, giving better situational awareness, which helps to reach your destination in a more thoughtful manner.

Perhaps not that much relatable, but to me it makes moving between places much more fun and enjoyable, since you are forced to look at your surroundings and plan your route, instead of just looking into a little screen that tells you what to do.

Fairness

Using OpenStreetMaps means that your map is kept a-political and fair (e.g. businesses can not pay to be ranked higher and do not need to register to be shown).

In Organic Maps, when searching for places of a specific kind (e.g. retail stores) you can choose to show all in the map. It does not rank them by the money they pay and shows you every mapped shop. Thus, you will make an autonomous choice not influenced by the big brother. This helps local stores, specially when being abroad, where you have more trouble to find stores. GMaps will often give you a big supermarket as the default, in detriment of small local businesess that may not be mapped or ranked that high.

Critical thinking

Multiple times it has happened that some person close to me has looked in GMaps for the path from one place to another. It turns out that GMaps will often give you just one route from one place to another. That is, even though there are multiple ways, it will hide them from sight and give you the one it chooses. As a side effect, this also brings you into the dynamic of depending on the machine for navigation.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, I had to go from one place to another in my city. Part of the routing, was taking a train from one station to another. In fact, multiple trains could be taken, because they shared stations in that segment, even though they were in different lines. In the station, I found another person which was going to the same place as me. When the train came, I told him to get in, because I knew that the train did not matter. He, however, would have not taken that train, because GMaps indicated just one of all the train lines that could be taken. He would have waited some 20 minutes for the other train.

This is a classic example of tunnel vision, caused solely by the focus on a single route that GMaps gives to traveling from one place to another.

When you get the big picture of your route, you will apply critical thinking and not just take what the app gives you. This helps to make better and more informed decitions when the technology fails.

Conclusion

To summarize it all: navigating with Organic Maps gives you a more human experience.

NOTE: I put Organic Maps, but I reiterate that it is solely because it is the
      only one I have tried

Sources and annotations

I have not used any particular sources for this article, but I encourage to take a look at Organic Maps (or others) and OpenStreetMaps.

As of the time of this writing, I plan to make a post on OSM in the future.

MISC: I have recently started to contribute to OSM, and found it to be very fun
      and enjoyable.

Izan, 29 Jan 2026, LLU blog