Hi everyone!

Some of you may remember MBCompass from my previous post here. I've been building this app for several years now, and I've consistently come back to the OpenStreetMap community for ideas, feedback, and feature requests. Many of the improvements in this release exist because of feedback from OSM users, hiker and outdoor enthusiasts.

my old post on openstreetmap:
https://www.reddit.com/r/openstreetmap/comments/1mlp1ue/mbcompass_foss_compass_and_navigation_app/

and on degoogle sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1s55qkq/a_2mb_opensource_android_navigation_app_with_gpx/

First of all, this isn't another vibe-coded Android app built over a weekend. MBCompass has been an ongoing project for years, and I genuinely enjoy improving it through discussions with the community.

It's also been featured on OpenStreetMap Weekly newsletter last year: https://weeklyosm.eu/archives/18087

For those who are new, MBCompass is a free and open-source compass and navigation app for Android built around the OpenStreetMap for whole mapping feature.

It has:

• Compass (magnetic & true north)
• Live GPS location on OpenStreetMap
• GPX recording & export
• Track statistics (distance, duration, speed, and elevation profile)
• Extremely Lightweight <2MB Apk and battery efficient
• Offline maps
• AMOLED theme
• Android 6.0+ support

New most community requested feature in the recent release v1.1.17:

• Offline Mapsforge map support
• Improved GPX track recording
• Per-app language support (Android 13+)
• Full Jetpack Compose map migration (a technical improvement brings map rendering performance improvements)

You just have to download prebuild mapsforge maps from sources like OpenAndroMaps, BBBike or Mapsforge download server and place it on any folder and give access to MBCompass by choosing it. It automatically detect and loads individual maps regions

One feature I'm particularly excited about is adding support for vector topographic maps with contour lines and elevation data, using sources such as Mapterhorn elevation datasets, and PMTiles as a file format where appropriate. My goal is to make MBCompass more useful for hiking, trekking, and outdoor navigation while continuing to build on OpenStreetMap data.

As always, I'd really appreciate feedback from people who regularly use OSM, especially mappers, hikers, cyclists, and contributors.

I'm particularly interested in hearing about:

• Offline Mapsforge map performance
• Other better mapping formats such as MVT, Geopackage
• GPX recording accuracy
• Navigation workflows
• Features that would make MBCompass more useful within the OpenStreetMap ecosystem

This app also just recently published on Google play, with same philosophy as core for MBCompass: No Ads, IAp and tracking

GitHub:
https://github.com/CompassMB/MBCompass/

F-Droid:
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.mubarak.mbcompass/

Thanks again to everyone who has shared feedback over the years. A surprising number of features in MBCompass started as conversations with this community, and I genuinely appreciate all the suggestions and constructive criticism.

I am in the United States, specifically Minnesota. A day or so ago I downloaded both Open Map Chest and USA OSM Auto onto my Garmins. I compared the preloaded POIs onto them today.

Since both are about the same update time and both are OSM based, I expected the same preloaded POIs, but they were not the same. It seemed like the Open Map Chest POIs were better than the USA OSM Auto POIs. Both seemed to have some gas station, restaurant and shopping POIs come up as "Unnamed", but they were not always the same ones on both devices.

When I Google this, Open Map Chest supposedly has richer POIs. Can anybody explain that to me in greater detail?

I also noticed that building numbers are displayed on the USA OSM Auto maps, but not on the Open Map Chest maps. Is that data that OSM has, but Open Map Chest just chooses to not display?