<story><title>The rise of OpenStreetMap: A quest to conquer Google’s mapping empire</title><url>http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/02/28/openstreetmap/1/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nolok</author><text>FYI on android&amp;#x27;s Google Maps I&amp;#x27;ve been able to do that for at least a year and a half, and it works great for me (I used it extensively in SEA too, coincidentally). Not sure if it&amp;#x27;s available on iOS&amp;#x27;s version.</text></item><item><author>huskyr</author><text>One thing where OSM really shines is the ability to downloaded maps for offline use. When i was travelling in South East Asia for two months i had an iPhone with an app that allowed me to download a part of any OSM map. Because every hotel had Wi-Fi access i just downloaded the parts where i was travelling and used that instead of finding a local SIM card. Even in pretty remote parts the maps were usually good, and in some cases they were even better than the Google Maps equivalent (e.g. Laos).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>4ad</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s incomparable. Google Maps only caches around 10km x 10km, and in offline mode search and routing doesn&amp;#x27;t work. Also, in Google Maps it&amp;#x27;s impossible to tell if&amp;#x2F;what is cached and what not.&lt;p&gt;OSM maps can be for any area, and applications do provide search, including POI search and routing.</text></comment>
<story><title>The rise of OpenStreetMap: A quest to conquer Google’s mapping empire</title><url>http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/02/28/openstreetmap/1/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nolok</author><text>FYI on android&amp;#x27;s Google Maps I&amp;#x27;ve been able to do that for at least a year and a half, and it works great for me (I used it extensively in SEA too, coincidentally). Not sure if it&amp;#x27;s available on iOS&amp;#x27;s version.</text></item><item><author>huskyr</author><text>One thing where OSM really shines is the ability to downloaded maps for offline use. When i was travelling in South East Asia for two months i had an iPhone with an app that allowed me to download a part of any OSM map. Because every hotel had Wi-Fi access i just downloaded the parts where i was travelling and used that instead of finding a local SIM card. Even in pretty remote parts the maps were usually good, and in some cases they were even better than the Google Maps equivalent (e.g. Laos).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>est</author><text>Try cache satellite or terrain maps.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why I love open source or hackable products. You don&amp;#x27;t need to whining to a shitty support forum to grind a kpi driven product manager to make empty promises.</text></comment>