A Google spokesperson explains:
Promoted pins in navigation are not new – they let people see relevant ads for businesses like gas stations, restaurants, and stores along their route. To avoid driver distraction, these ads do not pop up, expand only if they’re tapped on, and disappear quickly after a short time.
Organic Maps and OsmAnd are not adding ads during navigation either. Nor “promoted pins”. Nor ads when browsing the map. Nor tracking your every move.
Seriously, give them a try. And remember that, if the maps are lacking information, you are free (and encouraged) to improve them on OpenStreetMap.
My question here is directed to other readers: I find the traffic layer in Gmaps to be my most used feature for local navigation. It’s the one feature I really do use every day before I drive home from work to decide which way I’m going to take to get home.
I see there are tutorials to define a map overlay in OsmAnd for traffic using Google’s API that are dated from a few years ago. Has anyone here successfully done this, and do these tutorials still work in 2024?
Unlikely. Google restricted their API access a few years ago.
It’s funny to me how everyone wants the product of the location reporting, but nobody wants to contribute to that data by reporting their location.
For now. 🙄
Too late. Already download OSM for the first time in years. I deliver all day long, and as much as I hated them, gmaps was worth it until now.
