I didn't realise open street map had made so much progress, the demo page looks really nice. The satellite view is not very detailed where I was checking but other than that I'm very impressed with the offering.
I didn't understand that part. If I remember right, the open street map website used to have a demo page of their own. In any case I'm very happy to see this.
OpenStreetMap's own demo page is openstreetmap.org (or osm.org). I find lima's reply also a little confusing, but I think he just means that it's fine for companies to take the data and use it for a map (and indeed it is), but I don't understand how that makes this not openstreetmap. I mean, technically OSM is the database, and the demo on their own page "is" not openstreetmap because openstreetmap isn't a demo but only a database... but I'm not sure he meant to be pedantic so I'm not sure what it meant.
Openstreetmap is just the underlying data - absolutely anyone can come along and build a program to draw images from it. That's why OSM is so powerful, and what distinguishes it from Google maps etc.
Are you suggesting OSM has better point-of-interest search than Google Maps?
I love OSM, but this doesn't match my experience at all. Can you provide a bit more detail, maybe some examples of searches that OSM has better data for than Google?
At least here in Sweden you have much more detailed POI info in the countryside, like rune stoned and such. In Google Maps they can be impossible to find, and even the small path leading to them do not appear.
I thought the same as simonw, I guess the confusion comes from that I would interpret POI search as being shops in towns. Indeed, things like runes and other countryside things with trails leading to them, gmaps is terrible at. I guess they just don't see the money in it, so it's up to us to map it ourselves.
OSM is obviously not so good for shops, but it has incredible detail in other points of interest, down to drinking fountains and benches. Although of course it depends of how well mapped your part of the world is.
For me, it's the user experience. Searching for anything recreational will bombard you with hotels, restaurants, etc. It's nice to be free of this information at times.
Which is exactly the way it's meant to be.