Organic Maps really nails the use case for a minimalistic, no-nonsense mapping app with great UX design. Whereas OsmAnd tries to accommodate all use cases with full configurability, which results in a mess of nested options menus, OM goes for reasonable defaults and short menu paths.
Unfortunately that minimalism comes with some downsides. While OM has a great metro map, it doesn't show bus lines (which would probably blot the map size quite a bit), making it unfortunately unusable for my use case.
OSM Public Transport schemes support for buses and trams is not implemented yet, and it's not an easy task. Any volunteers to lead the development are welcome!
I use both Organic Maps and OsmAnd, I see both your descriptions as features:
- Organic Maps is minimalistic, easy, great for what it does.
- OsmAnd does everything. Whenever I want to do something more advanced that is not in Organic Maps (typically I like the GPX stuff for hiking, or the ski maps, etc), I turn to OsmAnd.
Same here. Although I also keep both around from the perspective of an OpenStreetMap contributor and mapper. OrganicMaps is a bit spartan at times, but it has its place.
OsmAnd, while a bit harder to use (but not that much), is much better than Organic Maps: it can show satellite imagery from both Google and Microsoft (and download it for offline use!), has a 3D map view, supports coloring slopes, has a bunch of specialized functionality for hiking, cycling, skiing, maritime navigation, can record trails, can route according to vehicle dimensions and in general can do everything (except for things that require access to Google's data like routing based on live traffic data and showing data like opening hours that businesses put in Google Maps).
OSMand definitely has more features, but whether that makes it better depends on the use case. I like it in principle and try it every once in a while but could never really warm up to it, and every time I just end up going back to Organic Maps.
I love OSMand but I can't figure out why it announces speed bumps when I'm in walking and biking mode but not when in car mode :) But it's still the best navigation app I've used.
I agree, including other guided transit (trams, urban gondolas...) on the metro layer would greatly improve public transit routing.
But bus routes are a harder problem to integrate, especially in larger cities. In Paris, there are more than 200 bus routes (more than 1000 including the greater suburbs), map readability would take a probably big hit if they were displayed on the map, or at least it would require a lot of care to do it right. A some larger cities also have a night service for busses, with routes differing from the day busses, handling those properly is also an issue.
That's actually one of the few areas where I really like the way OsmAnd approached the UI. When you tap a bus stop, it shows you which bus lines stop there, and only after you tap one of the lines do you actually see the route for that particular line, and it has buttons to focus the next and previous stops.
Unfortunately that minimalism comes with some downsides. While OM has a great metro map, it doesn't show bus lines (which would probably blot the map size quite a bit), making it unfortunately unusable for my use case.