On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 8:27 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 May 2012 13:08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The difference is that Wikipedia is usable in the real world, whereas OSM, for the most part, is not. Yes, TomTom is dying. But it's because of Google, not because of OSM.
I'd actually flag smartphones as the culprit. They're the good-enough cheap alternative that's disrupting the satnav business. TomTom's article is actually about an Android app that uses OSM data.
Well, yeah. Smartphones were what allowed Google to create its free satnav app. And it's hard to compete with free.
And yeah, there are apps that use OSM data. And there will probably be more now that OSM has abandoned copyleft for data. But most of them won't be free, let alone libre, so it's hard to consider them part of OSM. If there's a usable free satnav app based on OSM data, I'd certainly like to see it.
Heck, my Blackberry doesn't have a GPS, but I can navigate usably with the Vodafone app that just triangulates off the cell towers. Resolution is terrible (on the order of 100-200 metres), but it turns out to be mostly sufficient.
I guess we have a different notion of "usable" :).
And yes, I'm talking about for driving navigation, which is TomTom's main market. Although, while OSM shines in some places in terms of walking navigation, it is woefully inadequate in others.