UT and maps program/GPS in the USA.

Nathan123 · 9 Jun 2020, 11:31

Hi. I am in the USA, and wash wondering....if I get a nexus 5 or OPO...will the GPS work well enough? Thinking of using as daily driver, but need pretty decent GPS/maps program. Just not sure how much an old phone would keep up.

Keneda · 9 Jun 2020, 11:33

1P1 is fully supported device, everything's working on it under UBports. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/bacon/
N5 is quite the same. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/hammerhead/

https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/

GPS system works the same way all over the world.

AppLee · 9 Jun 2020, 11:43

@Nathan123
GPS coverage of the US is very good, no problem there.
Regarding UT both devices have the same support for GPS.
A-GPS is not supported so the first fix can be a bit long, but precision and future fix are OK.

uNav and PureMaps are good navigation apps and if you need offline navigation, PureMaps can be coupled with "OSM Scout Server".

So I guess you'll find a suitable solution in the Open Store

stanwood · 9 Jun 2020, 11:43

@Nathan123 Hi, I'm using Nexus 5 with Puremaps & OSM Scout server. It runs pretty well.

Main features:

Online + offline open maps (you can choose wherever the region/area you want to install)
Itinerary + voice guidance
Choice of many display modes (satellite, basic, etc...)
Position sharing
Favorite spots
Frequent updates
Intuitive navigation

Cons:

Offline maps do require a lot of memory (example: 2 GB for a small country such as Switzerland)
GPS signal acquisition takes quite a long time to operate (5 minutes in average)

Needs those 2 apps to be fully functional:

https://open-store.io/app/pure-maps.jonnius
https://open-store.io/app/osmscout-server.jonnius

Nathan123 · 9 Jun 2020, 11:52

Thanks! Guess I was asking about how the phone handles it more....fast enough?

jbriones · 9 Jun 2020, 12:27

@Nathan123 It's decently fast. Of course, it could be better, but it is usable if you are patient.

trainailleur · 10 Jun 2020, 01:16

@Nathan123 said in UT and maps program/GPS in the USA.:

Hi. I am in the USA, and wash wondering....if I get a nexus 5 or OPO...will the GPS work well enough? Thinking of using as daily driver, but need pretty decent GPS/maps program. Just not sure how much an old phone would keep up.

The problem is not the software, nor even the hardware aside from the slow initial GPS lock, nor the actual roads on the maps, but rather the addressing. The accuracy of Open Street Maps addressing in the US is very hit or miss, but in my experience mostly miss. If you live in a densely-populated place with a lot of young techies, or in a city who has gone out of its way to contribute to OSM (some do), you might be in luck. But many places in the US, you will be reduced to navigating by intersection, if the app even allows that (OSMAnd on Android does, but I've not figured out how to do it in PureMaps or uNav).

rocket2nfinity · 10 Jun 2020, 01:30

The Google maps web app in the open store works well enough

stanwood · 10 Jun 2020, 05:44

@rocket2nfinity But doesn’t work for itinerary guidance...

AppLee · 10 Jun 2020, 07:55

@trainailleur
Well you're right.

Spread the word, US citizen please contribute to OSM.
It's easy and you can use your knowledge of local area to help others.

You can also push your mayor or governor to contribute to Open Data so when new roads or changes are done it will be updated in OSM servers as well.

Open source can be slow at the begining but as it grows stronger it grows faster too.

trainailleur · 10 Jun 2020, 14:42

@AppLee
Agreed. It is a worthy cause, and it is slowly improving in the US

My point was less "abandon all hope ye who enter" than "people shouldn't extrapolate their good experience with OSM in other countries or small parts of the US to the majority of the US, where it remains barely usable." In most of the US, I would not recommend Ubuntu Touch as a daily driver to anyone for whom navigation is especially important until such a time as GPS is usable within Anbox.

(Android navigation programs are of course data leaks, but some of them work okay with microG.)

But if one is happy to use OSM for the maps themselves and less for the addressing, and one can live with GPS alone, the navigation apps on Ubuntu Touch are decent and easy to use (far nicer than OSMAnd on Android IMO).

stanwood · 10 Jun 2020, 17:36

@trainailleur It's weird. I'm living above a lost mountain village in the middle of the alps. OSM shows me every single trail and gravel paths... Didn't know that US territory was unwell covered...

trainailleur · 10 Jun 2020, 19:48

@stanwood said in UT and maps program/GPS in the USA.:

@trainailleur It's weird. I'm living above a lost mountain village in the middle of the alps. OSM shows me every single trail and gravel paths... Didn't know that US territory was unwell covered...

Market pressures and the delineation between public and private spheres are very different in the US than elsewhere. For one thing, much (most?) mapping data in the US has been in private hands for decades now, so building a comprehensive mapping product on a timescale of less than "eventually" costs money. For another, it's Google and Apple's home market.

Both of those effects are gradually diminishing. More and more map data is being made freely available by various levels of government in the US, but at the same time Google and Apple are working hard to serve other countries better. So I would expect contributions to OSM to grow over time in the US, but likewise, there may over time be less incentive to use or contribute to OSM in other countries.

Nathan123 · 13 Jun 2020, 16:23

@trainailleur I live around a major city, Washington DC, VA, etc. I'm not looking for it to work everywhere in US. Just around here. I will give it a shot...

Nathan123 · 13 Jun 2020, 16:26

@AppLee Ok, sounds good. I'm no Linux admin, but I have high tech experience...just been having fun fiddling w/ Linux distros, and figuring them out.

potet · 13 Jun 2020, 16:37

@trainailleur I wouldn't be worried about a decreased incentive to use OSM in the rest of the world. At least in Europe Google Maps had great coverage before the smartphone GPS revolution: As far as I know it was never developed here primarily because Google maps coverage was lacking. There might, however, be some work done by GPS providers I am unaware of.

It's all about the limitations to use of Google Maps, and as OSM has gotten better it has also gotten more widely adapted. It does maybe suffer a bit from this as well: as it has not traditionally been an alternative to Google Maps, it is sometimes better at mapping trees than bars and restaurants. Thankfully they have made it easy for even the most technically incompetent users to contribute this information, so I see a bright future for it.

AppLee · 13 Jun 2020, 18:39

@potet said in UT and maps program/GPS in the USA.:

GPS providers

Not here to correct anything, just to share
The GPS providers are providing the GPS chips in our phones.

For cartography, you there are several providers for:

maps (vector data representing features: roads, buildings, etc.)
tiles (the visual components of maps).
geocodes (names for features like addresses or road names which allows to search something in a map)

The first one is served by OSM, the second one is usually a third party service provider and the last one can be nominatim which is a services provided by OSM but can also be part of the third party provider.

Navigation is another service that third party can offer and is able to resolve how to join two different locations.

Hope it can help someone to figure things out or better understand this complex world.