As some of you have already discovered, a new September update of Organic Maps is already available in AppStore, AppGallery, and F-Droid.
Google Play update is delayed because we hot-fixed a few interface-related issues. Hopefully, it will also be available in the upcoming days!

The coolest change is a fresh new look for Android (kudos to Arnaud Vergnet and all other contributors!), but let's check the full list of changes (and don’t forget to support us in many ways, including donations):

• New OSM maps data as of September 12
• Fixed wrong elevation data between -1,-1 and 1,1 latitudes and longitudes
• Fixed crash on startup after editing some OSM objects
• Bookmark lists are now sorted by recently modified time (sorting by name is planned!)
• Improved displaying of the next street name directions

Search:
• Show features in the viewport at the top of search results
• Significantly speedup some search scenarios
• Improved category ranking & address search.
• Fixed highlighted hotel search results icon on the map
• Improved German category search

Android:
• Replaced bottom toolbar with buttons for better UX and map visibility (now you see more map than before!)
• Improved toolbars, buttons and their positioning in different modes (please report any misalignment, we’ll fix it!)
• Fixed "gray location arrow" when device's time is incorrect (it’s better to sync your device’s time with network servers)
• Splash screen respects the dark mode
• Themed icon for Android 13
• Fixed displaying hotel rating in search results
• Fixed Search dialog appearance animation
• Note to OSM editors is not covered by a keyboard anymore
• Increased the font size of the exit number
• Improved OSM login page UX and OSM profile

iOS:
• Partially fixed annoying "Continue detecting location" dialog when returning to OM
• Use the same system font everywhere
• Use the default mail app on iOS 14 to report a bug
• Enabled Catalan translations

Localizations:
• Added missing translations for craft=* and residential gardens
• Added/fixed Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Catalan, Turkish, Belarusian translations
• Enabled Catalan TTS (Text-To-Speech)
• Localized some Telegram and Instagram links

Styles and icons:
• Added driving_school, music_school, language_school, archaeological_site, craft-painter
• Removed backgrounds from historic cemetery icons
• Added different castle types: castrum, fortified_church, fortress, hillfort, kremlin, manor, palace & shiro
• Increased visibility of education & some sports
• Separated furniture & kitchen types
• Better looking leisure=track
• Fixed vending=fuel icon

Organic Maps is participating in Hacktoberfest. You are welcome to contribute to the development of free, privacy-friendly, open-source maps that work offline anywhere and have so many map details thanks to OpenStreetMap. Choose any issue in our 1K+ issues list, and contribute! There are also other ways to support the project, including donations. We are very grateful for all your feedback and support.

Finally, the September update was approved by Google and is available in the Google Play Store. Please see the full changelog here.
It was a long delay, but we didn’t wait and worked hard together with our community on many issues. Please stay tuned for the upcoming October update 😉

Please test these beta versions for Android and let us know if you find any issues, especially related to location services. You can install them separately from the main store version.

Compared to FDroid, Google apk contains World map and Google Location Services that help to find your location faster over the network if you have Google on your device and are ok with privacy. It can be turned off in Organic Maps settings if you don’t need it.

A full changelog is available in our beta program at https://organicmaps.app/#beta
You can also install iOS beta from there.

Finally, after fixing some critical issues, the November Organic Maps update is available in the Apple Store, Huawei AppGallery, and on our Github. Google Play and FDroid are coming soon too.

Here is the full list of improvements, kudos to our contributors and our small team:

• New OSM data as of October 29
• Minor performance improvements
• Dump corrupted KMLs to the log on startup
• Do not strip non-ASCII characters from exported bookmark files
• Simplify/smooth road altitudes chart

Routing and Navigation:
• Show "Roads to avoid" options and warnings on the route also for walking, cycling, and metro routes
• Fixed some routing issues, including wrong routing via highway exits/links
• Enable Catalan TTS
• Show speed camera on tap

Search:
• Show all found results on the map screen
• Improved villages search
• Show only matched categories if they were selected from the list, not names
• Fixed street synonyms for nordic languages

Styles:
• Use regional metro/subway icons for entrances and stations
• Added brewery, plumber, tailor, carpenter, sawmill, beekeeper, blacksmith, electrician, painter, and other craft icons
• Added natural=shrubbery, natural=desert, leisure=dance, amenity=charging_station-motorcar, and more barrier types
• Draw international airport icon on z7-9
• Draw metro for major cities starting from z12
• Do not draw railway station icon for building=train_station
• Updated icons for garden, park, forest, national park, nature reserve, power, chimney
• Add historic battlefield, gallows, pillory, memorial cross, stolperstein and war_memorial
• Fixed historic=* priority
• Support sauna=yes tags
• Better colors for natural=scrub
• Draw entrance icon instead of a dot

Android
• Improved detecting current position
• Crossed out target icon means that you need to press it to detect current position
• Suggest turning on networking location service if it is disabled
• Hide system bars in full-screen mode
• On Android 13+ you can change OM language
• Use non-bold font in the Place Page title
• Properly handle notch on Android 8.1+
• Keep transparent status bar only on the map screen
• Fix crash on exit split screen
• Fix crash on login to OSM
• Fix crash in the "Location is disabled" dialog
• Crosshair API now supports "cll=lat,lon" argument to center the map
• Remove unused BATTERY_STATS system permission
• Use numbers for transit intermediate points
• Add missing icons in the editor
• Improve Wikipedia description in the Place Page

iOS Place Page:
• Use system 12/24h time format
• Show Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons links

Mac & Linux Desktop version:
• Fixed search indicator in Viewport mode
• Fixed search table update, now old results are always replaced by new ones

Translations:
• Use larger, more geographically significant names for Oregon maps in Downloader
• Updated Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), Turkish translations

For those impatient, here is the Google Play APK, the same as was uploaded several days ago in Google Play for review. It should install on top of your existing Google Play version without conflicts. And it should be 100% compatible with the upcoming Google Play release (if it is approved by Google, of course).

October/November update of Organic Maps with many fixes and improvements is avaliable in FDroid. See the full list of changes on our web site or in Telegram. Many thanks to all our users and contributors. Your donations and support are motivating and helping us to improve the fastest maps app in the world 😉

After a one-week review delay, Organic Maps October/November update is finally available in Google Play. See the detailed list of changes and improvements on our web site. Your feedback and support are appreciated 🙏

Now, in addition to Telegram, [matrix], Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, you can follow us on Mastodon. Well, actually on Fosstodon 😉

Meet the second November update of Organic Maps! Enjoy your travels and share your experience with us. Let's make the best privacy-focused, fastest and easiest to use offline maps together!

What was done in this release:

• New OpenStreetMaps data as of November 19
• Added Organic Maps Mastodon account to follow in Help dialog
• Fixed bug in a wrong bicycle's speed used for routing algorithm

iOS 
• Secondary title in the local language is now displayed on the Place Page
• Fixed Organic Maps Matrix room link in Help dialog
• Fixed opening URLs with # and ? symbols
• Update About menu item
• Removed gray line from the menu
• Place Page properly displays 1 hour left before the place closes

Android 🤖
• The blue arrow is properly centered inside the position icon
• Links to our website in Help dialog are localized (en, ru, it, tr are supported at the moment, please help us with site translations)
• Fixed navigation menu visible under navbar in some cases
• The distance to search results in the list is now properly displayed

Styles 🗺️
• Added healthcare=physiotherapist
• Fixed some wrong icons displayed on top of each other
• Added highway=busway type
• place=island and place=archipelago are now visible on the World map
• Fixed leisure area style
• Properly render waterway=dam as a background area
• Fixed water incorrectly drawn over the pier

Translations 🌐
• Added Estonian translations, thanks to Aulo Aasmaa @auloaasmaa!
• Updated Czech, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Turkish translations
• Fixed missing RV category translations for search
• Fixed non-working Catalan categories search
• Use Metro instead of Subway for en-GB

Desktop 🖥️ (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows)
• Fixed build errors on GCC-12
• Fixed map dragging using the mouse
• "+" key zooms in the map
• Use high-resolution icons on high-DPI displays on Macs
• Improve documentation about running WSL and desktop app (native Windows version is still in progress, please let us know if you are interested in it)

It's inspiring to know that what we do helps people. Organic Maps is great for many outdoor activities, including hiking. If you are considering the Alps for mountain hiking, you can turn to the experts on this subject: The Hiking Club. They have a successful history of preparing and planning for long mountain trips.

The Hiking Club recommends Organic Maps to all their clients, so they can easily import a thoroughly prepared KML file with all significant features and descriptions. And that's great, because the most important thing in the mountains is not to get lost, and to save your device's battery. And here we are (in our humble opinion 😉) the best!

In the future, we want to make route and trip planning even more convenient. Stay tuned for our news and updates. And many thanks to everyone who supports our free app and our small team of enthusiasts with words, deeds, and donations!

Please test today’s beta version for Android and report all found issues at Github or at android@organicmaps.app. New beta for iOS will be available in a day or two after Apple’s review. Links to betas are available on our website.

We wish you a Merry Christmas 🎅 and a Happy New Year 🎄! The best gift for us is to know that we are doing The Right Thing and that our time and efforts are helping someone on the Planet 🌎. Meet our small gift 🎁 to you: a New Year's release of Organic Maps is available in AppStore, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery, and FDroid!

We have to fix a lot of issues and implement many features (1200+ on our GitHub at the moment). Many of them are about improving the app. Some features are more complex and can be done as separate, independent open projects. For example, places photos and reviews, road traffic database, public transport service, cloud sync and backup, online maps, web editor for trip planning, map styles editor, travel guides, API/SDK for other apps, etc. Here you can help by donating, participating, or even leading such a project!

The main goal of the Organic Maps project is to create an open and privacy-friendly alternative to existing proprietary maps. With your donations, help, and support, we can reach this goal sooner while providing all services for free to everyone. Also, please let us know if you are aware of any grants that may help with the development of Organic Maps. For example, this grant can be used by contributors in Germany.

And, finally, here is the list of all changes in the New Year update:

Highlights:
• New OpenStreetMap data as of December 16, 2022
• Improved routing algorithm (there are still some issues to fix, please let us know!)
• No more routing over highway=construction 🙂
• Support multiple track geometry in KML files
• Fixed KML 2.3 track import from OpenTracks
• Faster parsing and rendering of complex KML tracks
• Allow adding some shops, galleries, music schools in the Map Editor
• Improved city borders in search results

Android:
• Fixed "Enable Location" system dialog in some cases
• Fixed crash in split mode & on portrait/landscape rotation
• More reliable compass arrow in Place Page
• Improved texts display in Help dialog
• New Mastodon icon

iOS:
• Settings & routing options headers are visible now in the Night Mode
• Fixed crash when displaying the menu

Map Styles:
• Improved, less bright icons in Night mode
• Fixed subway icons in some cities
• Properly draw barriers for areas and relations
• Fixed duplicated names on the world map
• Updated cave, mountain pass, peak, volcano, emergency phone, historic ship, ice cream, nightclub, music shop, stadium, video games icons
• Fixed wrong priorities of leisure=pitch, historic, post office
• More consistent filled/round icons (round means some kind of business/service)

Translations:
• TTS (Text-To-Speech) for Brazil, Mexican Spanish and Norwegian
• Fixed German and Hungarian search strings
• Updated Czech, Spanish translations

Many thanks to our community for your invaluable help, and many thanks to our users for choosing Organic Maps! 🙏🙏🙏

🎇🎈🎉 🎊🎄🎆