BTW I believe that post 1.0 release versions of Pushpin are actually better than what I wrote and provide at least some support for non-node objects (pushpin overall isn’t a large source of edits in OSM in any case for my reasoning on that see below).

As to a user friendly editing tool, sure it is possible, just take the effort for iD and mulitply by 10. iD already tries to do smart things like automatically generating a multi-polygon when you split a polygon/closed-way and it serves as a good example to gauge how much extra effort would be needed to expand that kind of level of abstration to all of OSM and where the pitfalls are.

But the real question is: is there ienough breathing space between pure surveying apps and full blown editors (Go Map! and Vespucci) to actually get a enough of a user base that the developement effort can be justified., I’m fairly sure that either you simply want to survey with implied adding the data post-survey at home, or if you enter it in to OSM directly you don’t really want to touch it again and keep post-survey clean up to a minimum. The consequences of the later is that you really do need to able to do nearly everything that you can do on the desktop. I should point out that surveying on the move is not the only use case for mobile editors so they will tend to have more functionality than “add a POI” apps will have in any case.

BTW my recommendation for a survey app on Android continues to be OSMtracker plus OpenCamera if you just want to take photographs (OpenCamera works well Vespucci too).

Yepp, just as all the other apps which

a) don’t show you what is already in the OSM data

b) take the hammer approach to editing (replace nodes with nails)

pushpin is just one of a number with the same issue not worse or better than the whole lot.

@mvexel the basic notion that it can be “simple” to just add a “poi” is mistaken. It is a consequence of the OSM data model for better or worse that a POI can have many many different guises and the only way to handle that without breaking things is to have a full complement of the existing data available with all the complications that implies.

So maybe the answer is that android users would prefer not to break existing data, contrary for example to people that think push pin is good.

@ Duck the mode doesn’t really have a bearing on element selection (you still need to be able select nodes in the end), but I find the change I made for 0.9.6 with the smaller default node touch regions have made it significantly easier to select ways in high density areas.

Well a different way at looking at it would be to say well we have roughly 40’000 mistagged objects of a good 80’000’000 (just counting nodes with tags, in reality the number is larger)..

In other words: we have the incredibly large error rate of 0.05% aka “not a problem”.

Vespucci will allow you to do that.

However this is currently works slightly different than the normal editing mode and requires a mobile data connection (the Notes code is currently in the process of being refactored and will allow pre-survey bulk down- and post-suvey upload in the next version, similar to the normal editing mode).

Naturally if you are using vespucci you might as well directly add the stores to OSM.

I haven’t made any measurements in absolute terms yet, but the big win is that the refactoring of the auto download code (and when done of the notes code) allows the whole thing to run without the screen on. Obviously that is a net win wrt battery life in any case.

As to bandwidth, you can still simply download an area in advance or even simply have a set of JOSM compatible OSM files on device (this currently isn’t possible with Notes, but that is one of the major reasons for the refactoring, so will be in the release).

What is the split in absolute numbers of the total of ~1500 for starting in TH, ER and MM?

I find your interpretations of the results rather biased, for example an alternative explanation for the lower (HOT, not OSM in general) retention rates of TH and ER could be that the more experienced contributors prefer mapping on their home turf to staring at not particularly good images of places of which they have no 1st hand experience. Obviously this would not be something that effects the majority of MM contributors due to lack of any other experience.

@escada could you please forward a link to the changeset in question to the DWG so that the account can be permamently banned.

@imagico it is undoubtably quite legit for MapBox to control what others can easily use of the technology they have developed (well in most cases it is more continued development of projects that existed pre-MB). The blog post was more about cutting through the haze of rethoric camouflaging completely conventional business practices.

And as you point out, the basic underlying business model is not really new, it is just that the trade rags have lost track of what the previous dozen of buzz words for the same were.

I don’t have an opinion on if there is space in MapBoxes niche for more than one player at this point in time. What is however clear is that the easy available capital in the states makes it extremely difficult for any European company to compete, not that any of the other players have indicated that they really want to do so.

I would recommend to use either OpenCamera as the camera app (records the orientation of the device and has a setting to only take photographs when the device has a GPS fix) or use Mapillary.

While it is true that you will typically not get the best position accuracy by taking out the device waiting for a fix and pocketing it again, the trick is to capture enough context that you can use aerial imagery too to identify exactly where the relevant object is. For example if you are taking a picture of a shop, take a picture of the whole building too so that you can identify it from the roof shape etc.

Simon

Upps, that comment was from me ,,, used the wrong account.

While for once this seems to be a technically competent import, you seem to have ignored essentially all non-technical prerequisites osm.wiki/Import/Guidelines

I would, very strongly, recommend that you immediately catch up on the stuff that you haven’t done up to now.

Small note: if you are using oAuth there is no real need (need as in privacy/security concern) to use SSL to communicate with the API.

@Vincent well I’m not convinced our conversion rate -needs- improving. It would naturally be nice.

I should point out that the end of 2011 we had roughly half a million accounts (500’000) so the 2’848 is actually 0.5% of that, even more if you deduct the already active mappers from the 500k. So we should expect this number to coninue to increase in absolute terms.

See osm.org/user/SimonPoole/diary/34941 for some numbers.

@curmet in many legislations that would require an explicit opt-in, which we currently don’t even ask for.

If I was given to +1ing stuff I would +1000 the above.

PS: the actual licence change took three years but the whole process started in 2007 and took more like 5 years….

First way to solve the problem: zoom in more.

2nd way: use JOSM.

JOSM has a display/edit filter system that can reduce clutter somewhat, however -please- only use it if you know what you are doing. But even without filters JOSM tends to be less stressful than online editors once you get over the initial learning to use issues.