As the title states. I really want to like and use open source maps, but it seems that whatever database they are pulling from is pretty bad and incomplete overall. You also have to put the exact name, as it is in the system, otherwise it will not come up.
Just to use a really simple and well known example, after downloading the appropriate maps for this search, if I search for "the liberty bell", the first four results are either roads or businesses near me, then the liberty bell museum in Allentown (which btw is permanently closed), and then the liberty bell center, then the liberty bell center again for some reason, and then finally the actual liberty bell itself. There are also suggestions down the list that no longer exist, such as the liberty bell pavilion. So this is clearly outdated data that is being used.
The suggested searches are also nonsense, only taking the last word into account, i.e suggesting "belles ave", "bellgrove rd", etc, rather than "liberty bell center", which would be the most logical suggestion for that search.
Why is this so bad, and what needs to happen to make it better?
Community data like OpenSteeetMap rely on voluntary submissions, so the data can be either obsessive-level complete or non-existent. Especially businesses don't put themselves on OSM so their location/name/info are somewhat old or just don't exist
Search algorithms are incredibly complex to make it work well, Google (the king lf search engines) has likely hundreds of people working on an algorithm, Apple the same way
Offline search is also very taxing even if tue app implemented such algorithms, google maps searches with their billion dollars servers
So what you're saying is, if I want an actually functional map, I have to use Google or apple?
Not at all. I love Organic Maps/Comaps and I think in many aspects including usability (GM is trash to navigate and drains batteries like hell), it's much better than GM. However, when I want to reach a place I either find the address online, or search on google maps and then navigate to it with a better, lighter, offline, more beautiful app.
I'm just saying that open source maps usually are heavily lacking on the search functionality, and that's sad but understandable.