As /e/OS users, Magic Earth is our default navigation app but that has no active forum although this dead forum exists. I propose to exchange here our tips, feedbacks, and questions.
Here’s my feedback and advices of Magic Earth as a cyclist:
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The preview of trips with the type of roads is very enjoyable for cyclists, have a look at it before planning
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The altitude plot during navigation is also very nice to get prepared when you are about to start a steep climb, but it suffers from a bug (see below)
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Don’t forget to set your bike type in the settings (mountain, trekking, road, commuter) that is important if you expect your navigation to avoid busy roads and prefer bike lanes
The drawbacks and/or questions:
- Bug of the altitude plot during navigation: if you suddenly change the path, the plot does not regenerate and shows a point at the end of the plot even when you’re still in the middle of the route.
- search in the search bar is slow (especially compared to Google maps that searches very fast) and the order of results is not always relevant, but restarting the search usually allows you to find what you are looking for
- Is there a shortcut to switch to satellite view or bike view from the main screen (without changing the default style in the settings). The UX of the styles is not great, the other views should be suggested with a discrete widget on the main view imho, otherwise it’s hard to know that they actually exist. Also I don’t understand what the checkboxes and
button are made for when you click on “Day style” > “Phone tab” > “Edit”. - Location confidence (the blueish circle around the current point) does not always reflect real position error. Especially when the app is open periodically in a trip (e.g. a bus/train trip), while waiting for re-convergence of the GPS, the app shows high trust in a very old position, but I don’t know if it’s a hardware or software trouble
- Long-press on a random point and then clicking “Share” allows to copy/paste a piece of text with GPS coordinates, address, and a URL that is… a 404
- When I leave the navigation by mistake, the application asks for confirmation. A timer to cancel that question and continue navigation would be nice.
- POI search does not update when you move the map. Example: Open the search bar, click restaurants and then the map icon. Move the map, the search is not refreshed with the new map view, still showing previous restaurants. Also UX improvement in this usecase would be great:
- a double view map + list by default (why is another click on the map icon necessary?)
- allowing to resize the list/map proportions
- There’s no
opening_hoursof POIs when you click one. Not handy for the “search a restaurant” usecase. On top of that a “show open only” filter would be nice, but the question is open when OSM attributes are incomplete. - Icon-only buttons are not easy to get, icons with a short text would help a lot
The app would deserve the attention of UX designers to improve its design and gets more attention from users, but it’s the best Google-alternative I’ve found so far. Congratulations to the team!