Magic Earth: Privacy friendly maps with turn-by-turn navigation, OpenStreetMap, Crowd-Sourced Traffic, 3D maps, Satellite maps, Offline maps and Transit.

Some perspective from a user who's been on Magic Earth for well over a year:

It works very well. With a few quirks, it's like 90-95% as useful as Google Maps for a majority of personas
It's a mature app, finds most addresses (with possible exception of recent changes like a business moving)
Does surprisingly well with being current on traffic conditions
While not FOSS, they seem to be open about what they sell of your information and it's in aggregate, so I'm much less worried about location data being tied to other online dossiers I've left in my digital paper trail.

I found that Organic Maps and OsmAnd+ just couldn't cut it at all for finding addresses, routing wasn't super great (or intuitive), and otherwise rated very low on family acceptance as a replacement for Google Maps. I used Acastus Photon for addresses and frankly it's not that much better and the workflow was janky and pretty useless when you want to plot route waypoints. Magic Earth was the bridge between fully de-googling and having a livable acceptance factor. So far I haven't seen them doing anything they don't claim (not getting in trouble privacy-wise), so I'm good.

I would say "privacy friendly" is accurate in the title - but this is not FOSS. Even so for those looking to de-google without losing utility, I recommend it and am glad it exists.

Edit: I wish some apps (looking at you Starbucks!) would use a default mapping engine like Magic Earth instead of expecing Google Maps on Android phones (Graphene, Lineage, Calyx)

Thank you for your feedback
somehow i got stuck on heads up display, and i cannot figure out how to disable it now!
- Settings > Navigation > Car > Head-up Display
I agree completely with your review of Magic Earth. I will say that I keep some maps on my phone in Organic Maps as well. They are easier for me to follow when hiking on forest trails. When we went trailblazing on snowshoes, it made finding our way back to the main route simple.
- ~~Some icons of the undergrounds have different license. Read your first link carefully. And you link the source of the ui, or you don't consider png files as "source"?~~
  ~~If it wouldn't be foss, it couldn't be built by the f-droid build system, it can only build foss projects~~
  Edit: i was wrong

It might be "privacy" focused, but it's not open source

Do we have any indication they are trustworthy?
- We have an indication they aren’t — they make claims that are demonstrably untrue.
  [edit] actually, the website is pretty clear about what they do and don’t do. It’s only the poster on here who’s overplaying the availability, OSS and privacy angles.
Then it's a good thing it was posted to the privacy community and not the open source community.

Can anyone point to the source code please? They claim it is "privacy friendly", so it cannot be proprietary, right? right? right?

Your comment got me curious so I had a look.
From their FAQ:
Will Magic Earth be Open Source?
No; since it is also used commercially (we have a paid Magic Earth SDK for business partners), we cannot make the code public.
- Oh ok so there is no way to independently verify its privacy or security. Doesn't belong in this community then IMO.

Proprietary.

Not even joking, the fact that Magic Earth is still proprietary and comes bundled with /e/ is the main reason why I'm still not confident enough to use it as my ROM

Not open source no thanks. I'll stick to Organic Maps.

Seriously, y'all should try organic maps, particularly if you like to hike in places without reception.

FYI, from the FAQ:

Why is Magic Earth free? What is the business model?

Magic Earth is free for all our end-users but we also have a paid Magic Earth SDK for business partners. For instance Selectric.de (a supplier for navigation solutions for ambulances and fire trucks), Smarter AI (developing ADAS systems) or Absolute Cycling (using the platform on bicycles). For more info on the SDK, you can check magiclane.com.

Shoutout: we have a community here to on lemmy: !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml

Joined, thanks!
(Anyone else getting a 404 error at that link?)

Just get OrganicMaps

Organic routing just isn't very good sadly. If it were I'd use it
- I haven't noticed a difference yet. It does perform way better though
Just downloaded and happy. Thanks for the recommendation :)

So, I have an issue with OrganicMaps and Magic Earth: maps are too old.

Is that true or am I crazy? I make a modification in OpenStreetMap and it shows up in Osmand in a few hours, but it takes months to show up elsewhere.

Am I doing something wrong or is this expected?

OrganicMaps only updates the maps monthly, so you will see your changes only on the next month. Also map updates are tied to app updates, so you have to update the app in your store first, then a button in the app will let you download the new map files. Related issues, more info about this:
https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/835
https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/851
In OsmAnd you can set up the map update frequency and you can even enable online maps, so you can set it the way you want.
I never used Magic Earth, so I don't know how it works.
dot

Doesn't seem to be available for iOS in the US App Store.

Can confirm, got a pop up saying same just now.
Ah that's strange, I wonder why that is. I installed it from the app store a while back before it was removed, which is why I still have it on my phone. Not sure why they did that.
- Apple has a competing Map app, just sayin’.
I tried switching my VPN to Netherlands, but still couldn't access ME.

As soon as Organic Maps can route better, I'll switch back to it for driving. Magic Earth is my current tool. For routing and traffic shaping, it's as good as Waze. The driving / routing map (for me) is better than Waze or Google maps. I desperately want Organic Maps or OSM to work better.

What problems have you faced with organic maps? I have used it have a dozen times and had no problems. Does it not find the best path?
- Organic maps is OK and will get you to where you need to be, but routing is odd. It'll sit you in the worst traffic and doesn't know about road closures etc.
Organic Maps is nice, but working with GPX files is still very terrible. It has no direct way to import GPX files created on desktop, you can only open them from the disk, and they will look very strange, not like routes but like a bookmark. But as I see, Magic Earth has even worse capabilities for GPX.

Is there a way to download the official APK without relying on Google Play Store or Aurora Store?

There are websites which scrape the play store, and let you download apks without login. The problem is you cannot be sure that you get the same apk as you would get from play store. (But actually you cannot be sure about anything on play store as well: the developers build the apks and upload it, e.g. an attacker impersonating the developer can publish a fake apk to play store.)
With these things in mind, you can download apks from apkpure without login to anything: https://apkpure.com/magic-earth-navigation-maps/com.generalmagic.magicearth Afaik they never had an incident where their apk was different from the one on play, but you cannot be sure when they change their mind.

Does it work with Android auto?

Project seems dubious based on other comments but I've yet to find anything that's good and respects privacy while also being on Android auto.

It does yeah, the UI is very similar to Google Maps

Currently using Magic Earth as its the default map application for /e/OS (mobile OS). Been liking it for the most part, but sometimes searches for a place comes up with results that are way far away.

So what’s the catch? Not sure if the answer in the FAQ really answers the question why it’s free. “Magic Earth is free for all our end-users but we also have a paid Magic Earth SDK for business partners. For instance Selectric.de (a supplier for navigation solutions for ambulances and fire trucks), Smarter AI (developing ADAS systems) or Absolute Cycling (using the platform on bicycles).”

I assume the user data like traffic and OSM contributions adds value to their paid SDK.
Don’t know but guessing, they are using open street maps so they can’t charge for it. Not sure as I have not looked into the licensing of it but assuming something like that.

GMaps VW (android only) + Organic Maps is the best open source mapping solution imo.

It (ios app store) says not available in my region. does anyone know where I could find what region to spoof to get it? (also I know I should get android im working on it)

Did you contact the developer? It's open-source, why would they restrict it?
- It's not OpenSource unfortunately
- I just realized it isn't open source, not sure where op got that from, so I'm just not gonna get it.

I replaced my Garmin sat nav with an old android phone using Magic Earth and it's great for the most part. However, even after updating the maps last week, on our recent holiday around Scotland it wanted to send us up through a 'new' housing estate to get to the other side. Unfortunately, the main road was now closed off and then it was trying to get me to drive through someones living room to get back to the main road. The map kind of showed new housing estate roads but not to the scale of this development.

Also, the export favourites function is pretty useless. It exports a sqlite db but there's no visible way to import this into another copy of Magic Earth.

It seems Like it doesnt work without gapps. I am in LineageOS without gapps, so Organic Maps wins.

EDIT: It works without Gapps. Tested it again today and it worked.

It works perfectly fine without any GApps, not sure where you're getting this info. I've used it for months with no issues.
- Im using Fairphone 4 5G. Do you really use it without any gapps? Not even Micro/Nano G? I installed pure Lineage20. In Google Maps and most of the other Navigation apps GPS Locationing doesnt work. Organic Maps just works. At least for me. Most of the time something doesnt work, it is because of gapps, and it is on the play store, so i would think it is because of that.
  But i will try it again and reply if it is now better or not.

No web interface?

How to make voice navigation works on magic earth with graphene os? I tinkered a bit and wasnt able to make it work
- I have GrapheneOS and recently tested Magic Earth and Organic Maps, in my rural area around town. For me, MagicEarth audio worked fine, but Organic Maps was mute..
  Magic Earth found specific street addresses better than Organic Maps/OSM, but couldn't list street names, just like OSM.
  AFAIK, this is because Graphene prevents the downloading of the Google voice modules that have access to local street names. I could be wrong on this.
  TLDR; You can't. GrapheneOS prevents it because Google owns the voice modules including the specific street names and most privacy invading maps software tracks your location in order to vocalize the basic naviation and street names.

well ok

Crowd sourced is the worst. When ease was new and was crowd sourced it would always have me make a right onto a side street, take an immediate left and then another right to continue on the same street I was already on.

I really hope that isn’t what they mean my crowd sourced.

Lol Google Maps did that shit to me literally yesterday, it happens all the time.
I've seen that happen in both Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps...
But the nice thing about something crowdsourced like OpenStreetMaps, is that I can just hop on their editor and fix the street that is broken.
- Would not addition people that continue to do the same thing override your fix?

well ok

This might be Europe only. Blocked in US App Store

Edit: this is likely the case…at least for now. Screenshots on website are European

It's not, I installed it in the U.S. just fine.
- When and where
- You must be android or something since it’s not available in iOS App Store in USA
Seems to be in the UK iOS store

Not available (currently) in Canada.

Wow. Major fail-and-uninstall for me: There's a repertory movie theatre across town I visit once a month and always use Google maps for traffic and routing advice. Magic Earth couldn't find it.

You can add it personally at openstreetmap.org
- Hadn't considered that--you're right! 👍
- I've discovered that it IS on OSM--but I had to search for the exact string ("aero american cinematheque").
Follow-up after using Magic Earth to navigate to an intersection up in the local hills: It worked, but I didn't like that it wasn't indicating street names in the read-aloud directions--just "turn left, turn right". That might be a must-have feature for me.