> On sheer readability I also prefer Google Maps, but I've been using it so long that that might be just familiarity.
Interesting – personally I find Maps absolutely horrible for usage as an actual map for orienting myself (as opposed to just serving as a vague geographical background for displaying POIs or navigation information).
When you zoom out, it often doesn't really distinguish between forests and other open spaces (admittedly OSM's coverage in that regard varies regionally, though at least in Europe it seems quite comprehensive and definitively better than Google's).
Then, when you zoom in everything just turns into a featureless grey-on-grey with no distinction between built-up areas and everything else (only "parks" get shown, but e.g. in France that apparently even covers large scale "natural parks" covering hundreds or even thousands of square kilometres, so in that case everything, including any towns happening to lie in that area, just gets shown with a green background, which is equally useless), and buildings are only shown when you start zooming in really closely.
Yes, there is a lot to improve. I also have my gripes about what POI are kept from the detail view to the zoomed out view, or how I'll completely lose a location if I happen to misclick on some random POI that happens to fall under my finger on the edge of the screen.
On the rougher part of the maps, I often get back to satellite view and/or StreeView if available (even as they sometimes don't show the same info as they come from different points in time -_-;). It's a handy backup that I don't get on the open source map apps
> even as they sometimes don't show the same info as they come from different points in time
And for unfathomable reasons Google Earth (the desktop version) can show historic aerial imagery, but no historic street view pictures, whereas Google Maps works just the other way round – you can view historic street view photographs there, but no historic aerial/satellite imagery. (And the browser version of Google Earth apparently can't do either.)
Interesting – personally I find Maps absolutely horrible for usage as an actual map for orienting myself (as opposed to just serving as a vague geographical background for displaying POIs or navigation information).
When you zoom out, it often doesn't really distinguish between forests and other open spaces (admittedly OSM's coverage in that regard varies regionally, though at least in Europe it seems quite comprehensive and definitively better than Google's).
Then, when you zoom in everything just turns into a featureless grey-on-grey with no distinction between built-up areas and everything else (only "parks" get shown, but e.g. in France that apparently even covers large scale "natural parks" covering hundreds or even thousands of square kilometres, so in that case everything, including any towns happening to lie in that area, just gets shown with a green background, which is equally useless), and buildings are only shown when you start zooming in really closely.