I’ve just reached my first OSM milestone by confirming all my contact addresses are in OSM. This took considerably longer than expected. I wanted to add the addresses of all my contacts from around the world to OSM so that those addresses will appear in the next map update for the Magic Earth app.

My first step for this milestone was to cull my contacts list for the first time in 20 years. This step took several hours. My next step was to add the addresses of my contacts to OSM if they did not already exist. This step proved to be a very time consuming and frustrating experience, although there were plenty of learnings too.

The first learning which came quite early on was that when postcodes are introduced to a country, parts of the old address are incorrectly removed by the postal service. In one example, my brother was given a new suburb. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to retain the old address and just add the new post code, rather than using the new address in full.

Needless to say people giving out the wrong addresses like my brother makes life difficult for address search engines. A good address search engine needs to be very clever in accommodating this human behaviour. I found the OSM search engine wasn’t very forgiving, while Google search engine was too forgiving at times by giving me the wrong location.

I decided to edit the addresses of my contacts so that the OSM search engine would find the correct location. I didn’t mind changing the address when it was clear that part of the address was wrong like with my brother.

It was obvious to me that Google tries different permutations of the address to find a result, while OSM expects the address to be perfect. I imagine Google’s first permutation in the UK would be to use the post code and street address as that is all that is needed for a location in the UK. If that permutation failed it would try other permutations with the full address until it got a result.

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About 6 weeks ago, I signed up to openstreetmap.org (OSM) to map my contact’s addresses and my public transport routes. My thinking was that adding these details will mean I will use OSM based apps everyday. When I add new contacts in the future, I will add their addresses to OSM too.

Of course, the first address I added was my home address and then the addresses on my street. I posted my initial impressions of OSM in my diary and people commented about my diary entry. I read their comments and their diary’s. I learnt from their diary’s that addresses can be automatically imported to OSM from government data sources as long as OSM have permission to use those data sources. I didn’t want to be doing work that could be automated, so I checked to see if my government offered open data that listed all the addresses in Australia. I learnt that such data existed and that another OSM mapper was requesting the appropriate government permissions to automatically import this data to OSM. I also learnt that with a powerful computer and AI software that buildings can be mapped too. I felt quite disillusioned and decided to take a break.

I came back with the idea of recording GPS traces of my public transport routes, but then I learnt that the GPS on my Nokia 6.2 has a known issue with accuracy.

Then I decided I would add nodes for local businesses, which is based on local knowledge and will not be automated for many years to come!! Initially, I thought I could map those businesses off the top of my head having passed them for years. As soon as I sat down at my PC to add those businesses I realised I couldn’t remember some businesses.

So, I went down the street, mentally recording the sequence of the businesses. I returned to type in the business names and their addresses. OSM made me really look at my surroundings and there were things I didn’t notice in my neighbourhood. That’s when I got hooked on adding more information about these businesses to OSM.

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I came to Openstreetmap.org (OSM) from the OsmAnd mobile app because I found the numerous options in OsmAnd too intimidating. When I looked at OSM on my phone’s browser, I was surprised that the search bar and directions button were missing. I was also surprised to see the zoom-in and zoom-out buttons still being used when people use their fingers on their phones. I recognised the “show my location” icon.

i tapped on a point of interest (POI) on the map expecting to be presented with information about the POI, but instead I was given a series of options. These options were “directions from/to here”, “add a note”, “show address”, “query features”, “centre map here”.

I chose “show address” expecting to be presented with all the information about the selected POI. Instead I got the name of the business and the business address within a search results page. There seemed to be 3 search engines (Internal, Nominatim and Geonames) used to find the address, which just added to my confusion. There was no option to set the address as my destination address, which was disappointing.

I chose the same POI, but this time I chose the option “query features”. A results page appeared listing the “nearby” and “enclosing” features rather than just presenting the POI details. The POI was listed in the results and upon selecting it I was presented with more information about the POI than just the address, but there was still no option to set the POI as my destination address.

The next option I chose was to “add a note” which is a lovely idea with concise help explaining its use. The “centre map here” option worked as per my expectations.

When I chose “directions to here”, my POI turned to a red map pin. When I chose “directions from here”, my POI turned to a green map pin. The usual “directions search box” for a map didn’t appear.

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Ever since my first smartphone 12 years ago, I have used Here as my offline maps mobile app for driving, public transport, walking and cycling. I use the driving mode for cycling because the cycling mode is useless. I have looked at other mobile maps over the years, but I have always returned to Here. One thing I noticed common to all the apps was Open Street Map in the credits.

When Here “upgraded” their online public transport mode with real time schedules, they broke the offline public transport routing. So, this time I decided to look for an offline “Open Street Map only” mobile app. I installed OsmAnd.

My experience of OsmAnd was disappointing. The map download took way too long. The number of settings are overwhelming. However, the biggest disappointment is the missing street numbers to make the app useful for directions. I did have one friends address on the map and the offline driving routing mode was excellent. The offline public transport mode routing was broken. The cycling and walking mode routing looks good, but untested by me.

I tried to add the address for my GPS location to the map, but this proved to be too difficult. Rather than complain about the missing data, I’ve decided I will try to contribute my local knowledge and my contact addresses to Open Street Map through openstreetmap.org. In time, I may even add my public transport routes. However, for now it’s back to using Here Wego maps until I add those addresses.