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Normally, when I am walking or on a bike, the first button I press is the “where am I” button. This usually brings you to street level. I then zoom out until my destination also becomes visible. I rarely need to move the map, mostly I need to zoom in to see where I need to make a turn or where the route becomes complicated.
I had not noticed that it was possible to move the buttons to the right side. You are right, they are now reachable with one hand.
Thanks, that is now much better. I can live with them in the middle of the screen now.
The reason they where moved up was twofold. Unintentionally hitting them and being more obtrusive. (When dragging the map you will probably use the mid section of the screen the most.)
As they are now, you cannot hit them intentionally or unintentionally. How is that better?
I’m not sure what you mean about obtrusive. Now they are in the mid-section on the left side. They block part of the area, as you said, you use the most.
I had also asked that there be an option. So far I have no response. I have an iPhone 5 and big hands and I cannot hold the iPhone in one hand and reach the zoom buttons with my thumb. And, of course, people with iPhone 6 or 6 Plus will have an even bigger problem.
I also have a bike mount. However, I don’t travel usually travel with it. The problem on this ride was also that there was pouring rain. Fortunately, my iPhone stayed dry in my jacket pocket. Having to stop in pouring rain to move the iPhone because my finger could not reach the zoom buttons was especially frustrating. And sadly, the pub where I was headed did not have a fire where I could have dried my clothes. Though at least it was warm and the beer was good.
They used to work for me as well. However they no longer do. I use my home city as an example. When I put in bike layers in the past there were several to see. Now, there are none. Is there some way to fix this?
There seems to be a problem with this. Sometimes it works to press and hold the pin and sometimes only new pins are created. Today, I moved a pin, but was unable to move it back. Only new pins were created when I tried to move it. Shouldn’t this work correctly every time?
While I am quite happy with the new public transport application in Pocket Earth, I usually bring along with me bus schedules and a bus network map. While some bus stops in Pocket Earth include the bus number, many do not. And none of them include bus schedules.
Many of the local bus companies in Europe include quite a lot of downloadable information (in pdf format) that you can easily store and use on your iPhone without roaming charges. Here, for example, is the bus company I used a couple of weeks ago for our holiday in France: http://www.zestbus.fr/
They have a network map and the bus line schedules actually are better on pdf than on paper (they include a map showing all the stops, the paper schedule does not). Although my French is not very good, there are only a few words you need to know (in other languages as well) in order to find the needed information.
I know a site that includes links to all public transport companies in Europe. If anyone needs that, let me know and I’ll post the link.
Many thanks for the quick response and resolution! Do I need to wait for a new update to Pocket Earth or will the icons soon show on my iPhone?
As the “title” show (at the top of the screen grab), there should be an icon – a bierkrug (I think it’s called a mug in English). If you look here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/49.79975/11.03612 you will see the icon, which on my iPhone is also empty.
It seems there are two similar icons of Open Street Map: the bierkrug, which is missing on my iPhone, and a simple drinking glass, which I hope you can see here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/49.88272/10.91568 and which is not missing on my iPhone.
When I asked about the icons in another thread, I hoped that these icons could be added to the ones already on Pocket Earth. That is, if I make my own POI, I could use that icon. Of the icons that are used now, I only find one or two useful. I don’t, for example, understand why there is both a flag and a star since they both seem to mean the same thing.
I am retyping a message I wrote over one hour ago because the site would not react and the message was lost after it came back. I am NOT happy.
First to Xomtor: Thanks for trying to help. I’m sorry to say however, that we are talking about two different things.
When I chose to make a line, I then used the option “foot path” as it seemed the closest to the situation. Once I chose that, several fields opened on the left side. They included lit and width. Neither of those are tags. They are fields.
Secondly, there is no option to include traffic light.
It seems to me there should be a type of line called a crosswalk. I used foot path because nothing else came close.
To you both: I understand what a project like this is. I have also worked on Wikipedia. But, unlike Open Street Map, when Wikipedia decided to add different, specialised areas of interest, they made new sites. So, today, we’ve got Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia, etc. Open Street Map, continues to add new areas of interest, new tags, all without separating into specialised sites.
The entrance requirement to Open Street Map seems to me to be too high. There is a lot to learn and, with that knowledge, you’d be able to do what? Edit Open Street Map? Sorry, I’m not interested in starting a new hobby at this point. If they ever get to the point where anyone can edit it without any knowledge of tags and other esoteric things, let me know and I’ll take another look.
In the meantime, I’ll follow GeoMagick’s advice and ask someone there to fix an error.
GeoMagik,
I think there have been a few misunderstandings in your message. First of all, I never suggested that either you or your company or an individual here should be responsible for “improving the OSM project on the technical side”. What I had suggested was that perhaps some experienced OSM contributors who are also Pocket Earth users could volunteer to use their expertise to fix problems on the Open Street Map site.
By correcting errors in Open Street Map, Pocket Earth becomes a better and more useable product. I have found numerous, mostly small errors, in it.
For example, only yesterday I read an article about a restaurant in my country that I would like to try. The restaurant is located at Klappeijstraat 22 in Oosterhout. When I tried to locate it in Pocket Earth, using the proper map layer, it did not come up. The housing numbers on this street are given and I even found number 22. However, when I place a pin there, the address that comes up is Klappeijstraat 20, not 22.
This is a small error, but I would have no idea how to fix this. I would hope that it would not involve a lot of work. This might be an example of something that could be asked for of the Pocket Earth volunteers. Or perhaps even the Open Street Map volunteers.
While you kindly suggested that others could be asked to correct errors on the Open Street Map site itself, virtually all of the replies I’ve gotten from others here is “fix it yourself”
And finally, why are there so many errors, mostly small, but some big ones, on Open Street Maps? It is very likely because people with either no or too little experience have attempted to do put something or fix something on a map. Something that users here have also been encouraged to do. The way to fix the maps is not to encourage everyone to join in and take part in the project – the way to fix the maps is to have experienced people with the correct information fix the maps. People like me who lack the experience, can, if interested, be given pointers to specific instructions for the relevant problem. But, these inexperienced people should not be pushed in the water, but first helped to fix the problems and, perhaps, in time, some of us will become curious or interested enough to try to learn how to do this on our own.
Dear nounours,
I agree with you that Pocket Earth is a great app. (Where have I said that it wasn’t???). Open Street Map is a brilliant concept, but poorly executed. Unfortunately, Pocket Earth is a “child” of Open Street Map: if there is a mistake on Open Street Map (and there are plenty), Pocket Earth will also show that mistake.
How is Open Street Map poorly executed? It is not only too complex, it is also, apparently designed by people who primarily use one (or two) forms of transport, but seem unsure about other forms.
Here is a good example: it is possible to add “lines”. So I added a pedestrian path. It asked me whether the path was lit and how wide it was. Why? Does any mapping program look at the time of day when a request is made for a route? And what does the width (in meters) have to do with crossing it?
But, there is one question, I believe, that is the single most important question about a crossing path and that is NOT asked: that question is Does the crossing have a traffic light to stop autos? While this is not a question that is asked, for example, by Pocket Earth or any other offline map program (that I know), if there are two or more alternative routes, the route with traffic lights should be given the higher priority.
And finally, I assume “Abe” is Xomtor. I never proposed that he alone be responsible for all corrections. I suggested that the Pocket Earth developers assemble a team of people who are qualified to use Open Street Map and gave Xomtor as an example of someone who uses Pocket Earth and is a qualified Open Street Map contributor.
The better Open Street Map is, the better Pocket Earth will become. Beginners on Open Street Map will not advance it. Experienced users will.
Xomtor wrote: “As you’ve probably noticed, the entire intersection is a bit of a mess both on the ground and on the map and could use a cleanup.”
If you’ve never been there, how exactly would you know that? And furthermore, it isn’t at all true. Thanks to the complexity of Open Street Maps, the local people who have worked on the area have screwed it up. However, on the ground, even without having prepared for it, the path is fairly obvious if you know what to look for.
The situation, briefly, is three tunnels under a railway bridge. There is a train station called Gare Saint Augustin. The bus stop is also called Gare Saint Augustin, but is about two hundred meters from the train station and on the other side of the railway bridge.
From the bus stop, it is a simple and straight walk of only a few meters to tunnel #1. There is a marked crossing and traffic light. From tunnel #1 to tunnel #2 is a simple straight walk again with marked crossing and traffic light. Here is the only irregular part: you must walk through tunnel #2 to crossover to tunnel #3, which is marked as above. Once you are on the far side of tunnel #3, you have a direct route (no crossing) to the train station. I discovered all this on Street View and found it quite easy to successfully complete on the ground with no hardship whatsoever.
From what I saw, the situation (crossings, traffic lights, etc.) has not changed in years. The street view image is a year old and is exactly how it is now.
There is no question that Open Street Map is very handy (when it works). But, the reason it doesn’t work or has mistakes is undoubtedly because of its complexity. Take the access tag as an example. The tag has no less than eleven possible “states”. Of course, there is yes and no. But there’s also “permissive”, destination, designated, customers, delivery and discouraged (and several more). Why?
Most of these “states” are not at all relevant for a map designed for travelers and most, I assume, apply only to autos, not pedestrians. If Open Street Map wants to provide mapping services to commercial customers (lorry drivers, taxis, etc.), I don’t have a problem with it – however, why fill up a travel map with services meant for a different group of people?
That Pocket Earth was broken because of poor work on Open Street Map is quite obvious. And, I would guess that there are many, many more examples of this. It is my opinion that, rather than telling a Pocket Earth customer, “why don’t you fix it yourself?” that it would be better to solicit volunteers who are already familiar with Open Street Map and ask them to correct the problems. Xomtor would be a good example of this sort of person, and I would hope there are many others.
Before even reading your post, I had done what you suggested. I put in the crossing paths and changed the “service lane” to “yes” for foot. If that is all that is needed to correct the errors, then I have done my part.
However, as I wrote earlier, none of this is easy. Simply saying, if it’s wrong, why don’t you fix it, is a bit to me like saying, you don’t like this symphony? write a better one.
I don’t agree with your reasons for not fixing what is over obviously a fault in the tags. You clearly know how to use Open Street Maps correctly far better than I and you have the correct information to fix it.
I think a big problem with the OSM is that it may be too complex for non-technicians to use. That people who live in Nice or nearby have tagged this route incorrectly and no one has yet corrected it is for me proof that this system is either too complex or there may be a shortage of qualified contributors. As I have pointed out repeatedly, with never any reply, the route made by both Google Maps and Pocket Earth’s routing service have created a false crossing point in the route on exactly the same part of the same street that is marked “access:no”. How can that be?
The route proposed by both services is very dangerous. Not only because there is no crossing, but because two separate streets (Route de Grenoble and Av. Édouard Grinda) both send autos into this one little street, meaning it is never free from autos.
Here is a photo from Google Street View showing the proposed crossing (approximately where the black auto is). And please keep in mind there is a fence to climb and people following this advice will be carrying luggage.
The second screen shot shows the autos on Av. Édouard Grinda (in the background) waiting for their traffic signal to change so that can go down this street.
I don’t believe anyone seeing this in front of their eyes would be lunatic enough to attempt crossing it.
This is merely one example (although a fairly extreme one, in my view) of a flaw in OSM tagging. The flaw has still not been corrected and I have already been to Nice and used my own route to easily, quickly and safely get from the bus stop to the train station. And, why, when the route as given is so dangerous, should a safe route be kept away from other travelers?
Your faith in anonymous contributions is very idealistic, but, to quote something I read from a perhaps more realistic Internet observer: “There is more information publicly available today than ever before thanks to the Internet. And more lies.”
Since you haven’t responded to several points I’ve made, I’ll assume what your response would be. The “access=no” tag, I assume, refers only to autos but is incorrectly transmitted (or incorrectly tagged) when a pedestrian route is requested.
I could not disagree more with your last point. If the routing worked correctly (and you’ve admitted that it does not in at least this case), there would be no need to make a “personal” route. Sometimes, I can well imagine, especially a local person, may know a shorter way of going or an easier way of going than the routing service. Why should that information be kept private?
I have seen some ludicrous faith in technology. A Polish lorry driver needed to bring some goods to Manchester in the UK. His GPS routed him through the heart of London during the morning rush hour. He followed it. A tourist wanted to hire an auto and drive from Amsterdam to Brussels. When people told him it was much faster by train, he responded: but Google routing says it only takes only 90 minutes. Of course, Google has never actually driven the route, while local people have, but this tourist apparently trusted Google more than local people.
There is a lot of great new technology around today, but that does not mean that realistic perspective is no longer necessary.
I do not think that OSM needs to focus on pedestrians, I think it needs to de-focus on autos.
That is: give equal attention to the three main types of transport: walking, biking, driving. As I wrote above, I really don’t see the issue. I don’t know what the “access” tag means. But I don’t see a problem with being able to “tag” a street for auto, bicycle and pedestrian. Each tag could have a sub tag which would describe any restriction to that form of transport. So, for auto the sub tag might be one-way. The bicycle and pedestrian tags might be open (meaning any direction or no restriction).
The problem with Pocket Earth, however, is quite clear: inputting a manual route should NOT communicate with the routing server. I’m not a programmer, but if items are placed in numerical sequence, I don’t see the problem in simply asking the program to draw lines following the numerical order.
The way I see this is that there are not one, but two elements to the “tagging”. One is that they must be “correctly” tagged. The second is that the program supporting them must interpret the tag correctly. To use the street in front of my house as an example, it should be (and is) tagged for both autos and bicycles. However, when interpreting for autos, it should be restricted to one-way, but for bicycles, it should ignore the one-way rule since both bicycles and pedestrians do not need to follow traffic laws.
By focussing on autos, however, they are doing a great disservice to travelers of other types of transport. So, for example, when you wrote: “By placing that gray pin on that bus lane, you were essentially asking the router to generate a route along it and it came across the tag “access=no”” this is a disservice to pedestrians since the city of Nice not only has a pedestrian crosswalk there but also has traffic lights to stop the autos (or buses) when people are crossing.
Secondly, why does the routing service check a route that is manually input?!!! If the routing service worked properly in the first place, I wouldn’t need to put the route in manually, but it doesn’t. But the whole point of inputting a route manually is that it is an alternative to a route which, as you correctly pointed out, is focussed on auto drivers, not bikers or pedestrians.
And finally: as I pointed out several messages ago, when the routing service made the route (unrequested), why did it prevent the route from crossing at an existing crosswalk and put in a fictional crosswalk on the very same street??? How can a street be tagged for both yes and no?
I would also like to add that the routing I attached as “2.png” in my message above, suggests crossing exactly the same street that is tagged as “access:no” and furthermore, as the attached screen grab shows, does not have any sort of pedestrian crossing and has fences on both sides of the street to prevent people from crossing.
So, the routing says not to cross where there is a pedestrian crossing and yes to cross where there is none. I do not understand this type of logic at all.
