Organic Maps News & Updates

We recently received this email. If you are interested, or know relevant people, reply to the author directly: Dear Organic Maps Team, I am currently writing my master’s thesis at TU Berlin, building on previous laboratory and field studies conducted by our department on “spatial deskilling”—the potential decline in spatial orientation skills associated with the use of navigation systems. As a possible way of counteracting this effect, these studies examined landmark-based navigation instructions. Such instructions incorporate salient features of the environment, such as shops or churches, as visual points of reference and may thereby support the acquisition of spatial knowledge. My qualitative follow-up study now focuses on practical implementation: How could this approach be integrated into existing navigation products? What challenges, opportunities, and potential use cases do practitioners see? As these questions cannot be answered through previous research alone, I depend on the experience and insights of people working directly on navigation products and open-source navigation projects. I am therefore looking for professionals and experienced contributors with expertise in areas such as navigation and routing, map data, product development, user experience, or product strategy. Given Organic Maps’ work on OpenStreetMap-based offline navigation, routing, and turn-by-turn guidance, perspectives from your team and community would be particularly valuable to my research. Would it perhaps be possible to forward my request to relevant team members or contributors, or to recommend suitable contacts? I would be very grateful for any assistance in reaching people whose work relates to these areas. Participation involves completing a written questionnaire containing open-ended questions. It can be completed flexibly, at the participant’s own pace, and without scheduling an appointment. The questionnaire takes approximately 30–45 minutes and is available in either English or German - Previous experience with landmark-based navigation is not required. I would be happy to provide further information about the study, including the study information sheet and questionnaire. Thank you very much for taking the time to consider my request and for any support you may be able to offer! Best regards, Anna Vera Tamira Hansmair Master’s Student Division of Biopsychology and Neuroergonomics Technische Universität Berlin hansmair@campus.tu-berlin.de

Is anyone on Crete 🇬🇷 in the upcoming week and want to meet with one of Organic Maps maintainers or test drive/improve Organic Maps? DM @biodranik

Bugfixes and improvements for public transport, routing, search, and bookmarks in the July 2026 update As you may have already noticed, the July Organic Maps update is out. Get it at https://get.omaps.org or on the App Store, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery, Obtainium, Accrescent, and F-Droid. Thanks to your donations and feedback, in July we focused on bugfixes and improvements. In case you missed it, the following features from the previous June release are also available: • Public transport routes (live schedules are in development) • Satellite imagery • Alternate routes for driving, hiking, and cycling • New search and route planning interface for Android • Support for large accessibility fonts on iOS Detailed changelog Map & places • OpenStreetMap data updated as of July 14 • Notes reported to OpenStreetMap are now placed on the exact spot you selected, instead of in the middle of the whole street or area (Alexander Borsuk) • Improved place selection when tapping the map in regions that cross the 180° antimeridian (Viktor Govako) • Track elevation profiles no longer show outdated or empty charts after a track is deleted (Kiryl Kaveryn) Public transport • Stop, transfer, and station names now have a white outline to stay readable in both light and dark themes (Viktor Govako) • The subway layer reappears correctly after you close a public transport route preview (Mikhail Listratsenka) Routing & navigation • Route warnings (tolls, ferries, unpaved roads, steps, and so on) are now shown for all alternate routes (Viktor Govako) • Fixed a rare freeze while building a route (Viktor Govako) • Improved handling of dead ends and of start and finish points on restricted roads (Viktor Govako) • Fixed incorrect and missing turn instructions (Alexander Borsuk) iOS • New "Save search history" setting that lets you turn the history off and hide it if you would rather not keep it (Kiryl Kaveryn) • New Edit button to remove bookmarks more easily (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Bookmarks are now saved automatically when you leave the screen (Kiryl Kaveryn) • The color palette now offers predefined colors and lets you choose any custom color (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Improved the empty state of the elevation chart for a recorded track (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Improved the route progress shown on the Start button (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Reordering route stops no longer makes the list jump around (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Other minor interface improvements (Kiryl Kaveryn) Android • Opening hours now show split shifts (such as a lunch break), start from today, and display the whole week without a separate scrolling area (Owm Dubey, Alexander Borsuk, Mikhail Listratsenka) • Cleaner search bar with a combined clear and voice button, a clear icon that no longer moves, and layout fixes for landscape mode and phone rotation (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Reworked bookmark and track editor (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Route planning fixes and improvements (Mikhail Listratsenka) • The color picker now closes automatically, and a crash on Android 5 is fixed (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Fixed crashes (Alexander Borsuk, Mikhail Listratsenka) Desktop • The list of maps available for download is now sorted alphabetically (goncalo109560) Translations • Improved Chinese wording (Chenxi Zhao) • Updated Ukrainian translations (Nnifria) • Fixed Italian translations of map region names (Vittorio Bertola) Join beta testing to try early features and report issues: Hint: the beta version has new hillshading, improved elevation data with support for feet and meters, and other cool features! • iOS • Android • Flathub/Flatpak Happy summer! Organic Maps Team

New beta versions with improvements, bugfixes and fresh OSM map data are available. Get them at https://beta.omaps.org • TestFlight for iOS • AppTester for Android • Direct apk download http://cdn-beta.organicmaps.app/apk/2026.07.10-73-Google-beta.apk

• Fixed unexpected map style switching during routing on macOS (Alexander Borsuk) • Fixed a crash when closing the macOS app after exporting a KMZ file (Alexander Borsuk) Translations • Cantonese turn-by-turn voice guidance (Alexander Borsuk) • Updated German and French translations (Wuzzy, Alexander Borsuk) • Fixed incorrect "onto street" voice guidance translations for Chinese, Serbian, and Catalan (Alexander Borsuk) Join beta testing to try early features and report issues: • iOS • Android • Flathub/Flatpak We are grateful to all our users and contributors, to those who donate and give Organic Maps 5 stars in app stores. Together we can build the best maps app! With love, Organic Maps Team

Satellite imagery, public transport routes, alternate routes, new search and route planning interface for Android, large accessibility fonts support for iOS, and more in the June 2026 update There are many new exciting features and bugfixes in the June Organic Maps update to try out, including: • Satellite imagery • Public transport routes • Alternate routes • New search and route planning interface for Android • Large accessibility fonts support for iOS Get it at https://get.omaps.org or on the App Store, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery, Obtainium, Accrescent, and F-Droid and let us know what you think! Detailed changelog • NEW! Public transport routing by subway, light rail, bus, and tram (Viktor Govako) • NEW! Alternate routes: in addition to the fastest route, the app now shows the shortest route (Viktor Govako) • NEW! Walking and cycling route warnings about steps, gates, and lift gates along the way (Viktor Govako) • NEW! Select any color for bookmarks (Alexander Borsuk, Mikhail Listratsenka) • NEW! Support for British National Grid (OS Grid), Irish Grid, and Irish Transverse Mercator (ITM) coordinates (Alexander Borsuk) • EXPERIMENTAL: Enable Satellite Imagery in Organic Maps settings with a custom raster tile server URL. We are still working on our own server, so please find an openly available one with {x}, {y}, {z} placeholders in its URL (Viktor Govako, renderexpert) • OpenStreetMap data updated as of June 24 (Viktor Govako) • Wikipedia data updated as of June 20, including articles in Italian (Alexander Borsuk) • Type ?map-download-server:https://your-server.com/ in the search window to override the Organic Maps map download servers. Type ?no-map-download-server to remove the override (Alexander Borsuk) Map rendering & styles • Better-looking patterns for beach, sand, scree, bare rock, orchard, and vineyard areas, plus protected area and wetland hatching (Alexander Borsuk) • Smoother curved text labels for roads and rivers (Viktor Govako) • Rivers, streams, and wetlands have higher contrast and are more visible in dark mode (Alexander Borsuk) • New and improved icons for category search and search results on the map (Anton Makouski) • Improved multilingual text shaping and rendering (Alexander Borsuk) • Various bug fixes and performance improvements (Viktor Govako) Tracks, bookmarks & routes • GeoJSON tracks now keep elevation and timestamps on import and export (Alexander Borsuk) • Fixed a crash after moving a track to another list (Viktor Govako) • Websites are now shown for heritage sites (Viktor Govako) • Operator names are now shown for unnamed search results. For example, an unnamed ATM now shows its bank (Anton Makouski) • Editor: corrected the description text for apartment-building OpenStreetMap edits/changesets (titanniya542-spec) • Improved HTML detection in bookmark and track descriptions (Alexander Borsuk) iOS • NEW! Accessibility support for Dynamic Type and large fonts (Kiryl Kaveryn) • NEW! Tap to choose between overlapping tracks and routes (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Improved HTML rendering of bookmark and track descriptions (Kiryl Kaveryn) • Cleaner table styling in the UI (Kiryl Kaveryn) Android • NEW! Search interface (Kavi Khalique, Mikhail Listratsenka, Alexander Borsuk) • NEW! Routing interface (Rishan, Mikhail Listratsenka, Alexander Borsuk) • Improved HTML rendering of bookmark and track descriptions (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Reduced APK size (Alexander Borsuk) • The voice icon is shown as disabled when no text-to-speech engine is available (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Long bookmark and track descriptions now show a "…more" button (Mikhail Listratsenka) • Various UI fixes and an API fix for returned point IDs (Mikhail Listratsenka) Desktop • Support for switching the displayed coordinate system (Alexander Borsuk) • Information about the selected place is now displayed on the left (Viktor Govako) • Fixed the context menu position (Osyotr) • Fixed OpenStreetMap login and edits hanging on Qt versions 6.4 and earlier (Alexander Borsuk)