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)

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

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

Proprietary.

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

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.

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

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?

Just get OrganicMaps

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

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.

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

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.

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).”

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.

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)

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

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.