Last night Organic Maps was removed from the Play Store without any warnings or additional details due to “not meeting the requirements for the Family Program”. Compared to Google Maps and other maps apps rated for 3+ age, there are no ads or in-app purchases in Organic Maps. We have asked for an appeal.
As a temporary workaround for the Google Play issue, you can install the new upcoming Google Play update from this link: https://cdn.organicmaps.app/apk/OrganicMaps-24081605-GooglePlay.apk
The Announcement on various Networks:
Fosstodon Post
Twitter Post
Telegram Post
If you don’t know what Organic Maps is, it is an alternative to OsmAnd and google maps, more info on the official site (link) and GitHub.
Maybe an error? Honestly this is a weird one. I hope we will learn more in the coming hours.
You can still get it on the other channels, like F-Droid or Obtainium. Still, we all know that not being on the Play Store is an heavy sentence for any Android app.
EDITs
- Added F-Droid link.
- Fixed Typo in the obtainium link.
More people should know about F-droid.
You are right, and I forgot to add the link to it in the opening post. I’ll edit it in!
big disadvantage: if installed via fdroid, it won’t work on android auto
Correction: yes it will. Source: that’s how I installed it
Organic maps don’t show up tho
You have to enable “Unwanted Features” in F-Droid settings before it shows up.
Link to the app: https://f-droid.org/packages/app.organicmaps/
It states the OpenStreetMap data is from May. Is it fully offline and needs to wait for the next app update?
from the changelog:
OSM data as of July 23
Where is that?
“Include Anti Feature Apps” in Settings > App compatibility:
There you have to add the anti-features you may accept included in Apps. For OM you have to enable these:
(But not 100% sure about this. Maybe the first circled is also enough?)
Very helpful contribution - thanks 🙏
Ah you mean this. Thank you
Streisand effect
Never heard of this app until now
It’s built on open street maps and is great for trail stuff: hiking, dirt biking, horse riding, etc.
Was using Osmand before and it’s a lot nicer to use for day to day navigation on the bike than the sluggy mess Osmand sometimes is
Same
Does anyone know why the only public transport option is “subway”? I don’t get why they would only index subways.
It’s kind of weird to give that instead of just a general PT option that routes multi-modally with a menu to disable each type manually.
because you need to pull the schedules for each country in order to do that. they’re working on public transport navigation, but it’s still not ready for use.
If it’s not ready for use, it either shouldn’t show up by default, or it should have a visible disclaimer. Otherwise it could be dangerous…
yes, that’s exactly why public transport other than the subway doesn’t show up by default and you have to go an extra mile in order to enable it.
the subway showing up without the rest is beta software compared to other choices. It might route you three tomes as far all because it doesn’t know buses exist.
Subways are great when hiking or boating
I’d first heard of it yesterday when I saw it recommended here somewhere.
However, I wouldn’t assume maliciousness over incompetence. It is Google after all… Anybody who has ever published anything on there has probably had it removed at some point. There’s so many malicious apps and spurious reports, it could honestly be anything. The smaller your app, the longer it takes for an actual human to get involved and sort it out.
Lol Google scared
Yeaaah I doubt they give a fuck about this. Just an automated system doing automated things.
Google should really think about being nicer to competitors right now. Yet another reason it needs to be broken up by Lina Khan and the FTC.
I’m such a major fan of the FTC and Chair Khan right now. This is spot on.
Chair Khan? Am I the only one that things it’s a bad look to have that evil tiger from The Jungle Book leading the FTC?
Wow. At least it’s easy to sideload apps in Android.
F-Droid, no “side loading” needed
Don’t you need to side load F-Droid? That is what I did.
No, you just download it
Isn’t that what side loading is?
My definition of side loading is installing anything outside of an app management system. For example going to a website and downloading the APK and installing it.
Windows users call that “installing”… 😈
The only way to get it outside of sideloading is flashing a custom ROM like LineageOS that includes it. It’s not exactly available in the play store.
What in the world are you all calling “side loading” you just download the APK and install it. No cables, no ADB, no side loading
Edit, I guess kids these days are calling downloading APKs side loading lol
Installing an APK directly is sideloading. It’s literally on the “Get F-Droid” page:
To side-load our app store you may simply have to download the official F-Droid APK and install it.
Sideload, to me, means pushing it onto the phone and installing it from a second, local device. Loaded from the side. Easy enough to do if you have the tools.
Downloading an APK through a browser and installing it from a file browser, all from the single device itself, wouldn’t count as sideloading given my personal definition of the term.
You’re mixing the definitions of sideloading media and sideloading apps. Sideloading media follows your definition, e.g. transfer via another local device. Sideloading apps refers to the installing of apps outside of the (pre-)installed app store, e.g. by installing an APK directly.
That’s fine, your definition just doesn’t seem to be the norm. I think as things have changed over time, and it’s possible and easy to do it all on the device, that the definition has shifted. To me it means installing applications from outside of official channels.
That is what they are saying.
They are just pointing out the exception. The only way you wouldn’t need to sideload F-Droid is if it happened to be pre-installed on the OS itself.
I guess while I was sleeping side loading meaning went from having to manually move an APK from another device to an android via adb to just anything you downloaded?
That’s silly, but okay
Load from the Side. Sideload. It’s always meant that to me.
Wait, since when does LineageOS include F-Droid? I remember having to download it myself using the built-in browser the last time I tried it.
I installed it under Waydroid recently and it included it by default. Maybe it’s a newer thing? Or dependent on which image you choose?
I think bundling it might be unique to the Waydroid FOSS image. I recently set up Waydroid with GAPPS rather than with FOSS (because AuroraStore still won’t run on Waydroid, grrrrrrr) and it didn’t come with it.
(Side note, if you figure out how to get Aurora to show a list of apps in Waydroid x64 without instantly crashing, I will love you)
Alright, so apparently I’m about to get loved? Aurora just worked for me, but I installed Waydroid under Bazzite using one of the included just-scripts. So I went and figured out how it does it. To “configure”, which is the second step in setting up (on Bazzite) it calls this set of scripts: https://github.com/casualsnek/waydroid_script
The microg installation handles Aurora. In case you want it here’s the just script, tho it’s obviously tailored to bazzite: https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/blob/d5097a5e971c46912188a9004b2289cff3798221/system_files/desktop/shared/usr/share/ublue-os/just/82-bazzite-waydroid.just
Use Obtainium
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All my homies search for apps first in F-Droid and only use google play if there is no other option.
Can you help a sister out and help me to start using fdroid? Do I just google it? Can I download the fdroid store from Google play store?
You can’t download it from the Google Play store. You’ll have to download the .APK (application package, the installation file format for all Apps) from this url, there should be a tutorial to guide you further:
there are other apps than can access F-droid and everyone will soon start replying saying why they think their choice is the only reasonable one and everything else is the worst thing ever, but the official one under that link should be enough to get you started.
The official store is fine, but I personally stopped using it after it constantly made problems and wasn’t working properly.
When was that?
The official F-Droid app had an issue with not deleting downloads on systems that didn’t run it correctly in the background. That has been fixed some months ago.
I don’t know how long it has been, but it has been some months.
For me it got fixed in 1.20.0 from May 8, 2024.
I would recommend Droidify, which uses the fdroid store with a nicer UI.
All while the other antitrust case is still in progress
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, Old Man?
Look up brothels in sex-work friendly countries in Google Maps, screenshot them, and mass-report Google Maps as a prostitution app.
Seems to be still available on Apple’s store. And if Google intended to bury it, this is definitely Streisand Effect at work. Wish I’d known about this a few years ago when I was hiking more
I’m really curious about what kind of BS. Like you could search a sexy shop and have directions to go in person?
Ohh, that’s disgusting. Tell me which one so I can make sure to avoid it.
Why would you enlist a map app under the Families program in the first place though?
@gencha No reason at all. It was probably wrongfully flagged by Google’s AI based on some stupid wrongful training data. At least that’s what I think though, because folks at Pushbullet (remember the app?) seem to be having similar problems about “not mentioning that they upload user data to their servers” even though they clearly mention this when the app is opened for the first time.
Probably ensures that children can use it
That makes sense, but my understanding is, what Google considers Family content is not an add-on to regular content. Your content is not also for children, it is catered towards them. This implies using dedicated Google functionality, special SDKs, and so on, to comply with law. So your product needs to be designed in a very specific way to be eligible. I’m not aware of how Google Play restricts children from installing certain apps, but you can always install an app through a parental supervisor account.
To me, this story seems like a lot of crying over a situation that is not fully explained.
The screenshot had has the criteria included though. Relevant part: either be for children or for everyone.
Yeah I feel like this makes it harder to have this app used as an educational resource.
I did not know of this app but you know I’m gonna install it now.
Thanks Google!
I also just learned of it.
Just installed the app.
Maybe an error?
Error would be if they removed GMaps or Gmail from Play store, this is sabotage.
Play store is 99% some kind of scum, but they found open source app that community likes and is providing service comparable to their app. Yeah, right.
If they don’t want us to call it sabotage, they should be extra careful about apps that are providing same service as them.
Or actually an error since it’s already back…
That’s insane!
