Smooth Open Street Maps For the iPhone

detrow writes "A number of projects are working on bringing a smooth Open Street Maps Viewer to the iPhone, where smooth means as smooth as the Google Maps application. Route-Me is one of them (New BSD License, complete Objective-C native code). The GPS Mission blog reports that their application (GPS Mission) uses Route-Me and made it to the App Store as the first application using that OSM component. The map looks real nice and behaves just like Google Maps with all the well known zooming and panning available. What other iPhone applications exist that feel as smooth as Google Maps but use the Open Street Map?"

I hope it...

[rossdee]

knows about closed streets as well as open ones. Driving down a closed street is often not smooth at all.
(Of course that is during the pther season of the year (road construction) right now we are in the snow removal season.

Re:

[horatio]

This was an idea that I appreciated when I was testing out a TomTom - the ability to submit and fetch community-based feedback about road closures, detours, etc. For a variety of reasons I ended up choosing a Garmin for my nav needs, but I do wish they would implement some of the community based features.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot recall right now which GPS nav allows for feedback, but the one downside I have heard about it is you need enough users in the area to make it work well. Kinda like Sprint / Verizon / T-mobile / ATT / etc all allow free mobile to mobile, provided its on the same network. In smaller communities, it drives people to chose one provider over another because of the free buy-in.

Re:

[DJNephilim]

I think you are referring to the Dash GPS [dash.net]. I haven't used one myself, but it at least looks interesting.

or just use osm

[emj]

Openstreetmap actually lets you use the data that you supply.

Re:

[larry bagina]

Software and pussy should both be smooth and bug free.

I don't know about "smooth"

[Man On Pink Corner]

Even Ultima IV on the Apple II had the sense to precache the next set of tiles in the direction of travel.

Microsoft Virtual Earth also available

[maccodemonkey]

I worked with the Microsoft Virtual Earth team a few months back to bring their Virtual Earth platform to the iPhone/Mac in native OpenGL and Objective C. I released my work under the BSD license. http://consonancesw.com/developers/virtualearthkit/ [consonancesw.com] The map view is still closed source, as it was done for a client who wanted it to remain closed source for a bit to give his app an advantage, but it should be released soon. The app has been in the app store for a while, it's called NMobile. It's featured an OpenGL map view with full gesture support. The framework I open sourced also does a lot of nifty stuff like geocoding, reverse geocoding, static maps, and I'm adding supporting for finding locations like nearby restaurants and so forth. The route-me folks should keep in mind that their framework looks to implement support for talking to Virtual Earth without authenticating, which is in complete violation of the Virtual Earth terms. Using the Virtual Earth tiles requires sending a SOAP request for a transaction token, and then attaching that transaction token to every request. Their code does not seem to be doing that. Microsoft has warned that people who try to grab their tiles for free will likely be cut off. The route-me folks are welcome to borrow some code from my project (BSD licensed) to bring themselves within spec. At least Microsoft's terms are better than Google's, who doesn't seem to even allow that sort of behavior at all...

My GWT map

[SashaM]

My GWT maps [maryanovsky.com] are just as smooth as Google Maps, and the library supports the WMS tiling protocol, which I'm guessing is what OpenStreeMap uses. I'll have to investigate and talk to the OpenStreetMap guys to maybe use my client.

iPhone is becoming an 800-pound gorilla platform

[NinthAgendaDotCom]

So far it seems to be more of a "standard" than the Android platform, iPhone compatibility being key as an app can be rolled out to millions of people at once. But it's still early in the game.

Re:iPhone is becoming an 800-pound gorilla platfor

[timmarhy]

maybe a standard in hype...

Re:

[BitZtream]

Jealous much?

Re:

[ZorroIII]

Then start walking/driving around with a GPS and map your city. OSM is the map that anyone can edit.

Re:

[goldfndr]

A GPS receiver is less expensive than a GPS navigation system, but could be paired with your phone/PDA/laptop.

Re:

[rtfa-troll]

city I live in is large beige expanse with no streets

Open. As in you can edit it. As in; once you've edited it you own the data and it will never be restricted from you and if they start to try to force adverts down your throat, you can just download it and keep it. If it's blank where you live, then go on and fix it.

Yes, I know that won't really be an answer later open street map is being advertised as a map service. Right now, however, it's a service where you can build mapping data and they aren't hi

Re:zoomy streetviews -humbug- what about text edit

[Twisted64]

You crazy bastard, here it is [baara.com]. I've had it for ages, oohed and aaahed at it for a while with the bookmarks and whatnot, and promptly ignored it. I don't do much with text files. Turned the sound off, and it's really quite pleasant. I don't know if it can open a text file at the same place you closed it, but everything else seems fine.

Re:

[BitZtream]

Awesome reply dude, you pointed him at a Windows text editor, perhaps you should consider that Windows text editors don't run on the iPhone so Q10 is absolutely useless to him.

I feel that I should point out also, that there are thousands of text editors for Windows, many of which have the feature he has asked for and that just about anyone who is posting to slashdot, probably has the sense to find at least ONE of them.

I'm amazed at how people now days have no reading comprehension skills or at least utterly

Re:

[Twisted64]

Sorry, I knew the context, but assumed nobody would bother with editing BOOKS on a PHONE. He mentioned that this was OT, and also Macwrite 1.0 which has nothing to do with iPhones. Now I think about it, I'm not sorry at all, that was a kneejerk reaction... for which I must apologise.

I make no assumptions about slashdot readers these days. They come from everywhere.

Re:

[stokessd]

Are schools really that bad now days?

Yes....

I was sitting in Chipotle having a giant burrito with my wife and sitting at the bar next to us were two high-school aged skate-rat mopes. One asked the other what six times four are. They took a moment to figure it out. So to answer your question; Yes, yes they are that bad... But they always have been. Some people are well served by school and some are not. You can't teach a pig to sing.

Sheldon

Re:

[demonlapin]

you don't actually learn anything by memorizing a table

...except what the answer to six times four is. Knowing how multiplication works takes around five minutes of class time to explain; actually being able to do it takes months of practice. Knowing "why" is meaningless if you can't do it.

Re:zoomy streetviews -humbug- what about text edit

[konohitowa]

Wow - *that's* a troll? Well, it's quite an impressive troll. It's so stunningly subtle that I actually thought you wanted a good text editor on the iPhone. gj!

Navit

[anonieuweling]

http://www.navit-project.org/ [navit-project.org] and http://wiki.navit-project.org/index.php/Main_Page [navit-project.org] are the urls to Navit, a car navigation system with routing engine. Of course it also works when on foot, it can use open street maps and runs on various devices (my own being a PC and an HP Ipaq H2210). It is still in development but is usable.

Great, now can we get something useful?

[BitZtream]

Awesome, smooth scrolly maps. Thats just what I need while trying to drive. How about we do something useful and provide a turn by turn direction app rather than jerking ourselves over the fact that we now have a beta (at best) version of a component that google did at production quality 6 months ago. That 6 months just assumes that they didn't bother with the nice smooth scrolling before GPS functionality was available to them.

Also, Google Maps does far more than just 'smooth sliding'. Theres all sorts

Re:

[grandedgemaster]

OSM doesn't provide topology data needed for routing.

This is completely wrong, OSM is inherently topographic, as opposed to some other GIS data sources. http://www.yournavigation.org/ [yournavigation.org] uses OSM data.

Re:

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

The answer to the first point (as already noted) is "yes it does". Whether there's ENOUGH information in there to route you from where you are to where you want to go depends on OSM's coverage of where you are, but there are ways to represent the necessary TYPEs of data.

The pat answer to the second is that you're free to set up your own mapping project with data available under whatever licence you choose. There's a reason why OSM's founders chose to licence it as they do - some people agree with that and

More iPhone location awareness and OSM stories

[Lord Satri]

Shameless (really) plug, many users interested in OpenStreetMap [slashgeo.org] and the iPhone location awareness applications [slashgeo.org] will be interested by the site in my sig. Happy Christmas!

seadragon

[stiller]

Can't you use seadragon for something like this?

AndNav2 for Android

[DaveLatham]

Android has AndNav2 which now also provides audible turn-by-turn directions using OpenStreetMap data. And you can report bugs in the map data too. http://www.andnav.org/ [andnav.org]

this is where having an iphone seems uselesss.

[DragonTHC]

you really should have bought an android phone. My G1 shines when using the GPS function on google maps. It's quite useful.

The iphone's "you are somewhere in this giant circle" gps function is just useless.

jesusphone indeed.

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[WiiVault]

Um dude, shut up. Have you ever even used an iPhone 3G? Once it locates you it puts a little dot which stays updated just like the G1. I get that you are an Apple hater, but for heavens sake don't just make shit up.