The Magic Earth application now comes with a charge (www.magicearth.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Recently, Magic Lane (the company that makes the Magic Earth application) completely renewed their interface and general operation.

To use the application, you now have to pay €0.99/year. Personally, I find this price more than reasonable for supporting a European alternative to Google Maps.

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[-] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago

For me the price isn't an issue. The biggest problem is that the payment has to be done through G playstore.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Indeed...

These parasites just taxing everything

[-] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

I just use comaps

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

For me, the CoMaps (or OrganicMaps) application is pretty good for the map side of things. On the other hand, when it comes to navigation, I find Magic Earth much more complete (speed camera display, better traffic management, optimized interface for landscape navigation, reporting of road events, better precision of lanes to follow, and I'm forgetting many others).

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

@Gueoris @Dequei I agree. For example, in Toronto CoMaps only shows subway navigation to a certain destination, whereas Magic Earth displays a more precise mix of transit options (subway+tram/bus)

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Exactly !

On the other hand, I find Magic Earth rather poor when it comes to POIs, finding an establishment, finding out the opening hours of a place, and so on.

In the end, I use CoMaps + Apple Plans for points of interest and timetables, and Magic Earth for navigation.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

What's "Apple Plan"?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Basically Google Maps by Apple on iOS

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This price point makes me wonder what the purpose is: do they really have such a large user base that their 1 EUR/year subscription will add significant funds to develop the app further? I doubt. In which case the only effect will be to lose users who refuse to pay. Disclaimer: I use their app for navigation and I quite like it

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Indeed, that's a good question 🤔 An interesting solution might have been to leave the app free and make certain functions like speed cameras or real-time traffic accessible with the €1/year subscription. (I'm not saying it's a good solution, it's just an idea)

For my part, I'm more concerned about the "subscription" aspect. I'd have been prepared to pay €10 to get Magic Earth for life. But at 99 cents a year, it doesn't seem like much, and there's no guarantee that it'll become monthly or more expensive, for example.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

what about openstreetmap?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

OpenStreetMaps is not an app, just a map. Magic Earth (and Comaps, for that matter) uses OpenStreetMaps.

Personally I never liked Magic Earth. It jumps into navigation mode too easily and I just find the interface to always do something else than I want it to. Personal preference I guess.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Oh I see. Is it any better than osmandplus? I understand the pricing models if the support is worth it. I don't have playstore in my android though, so kind of empty question. Also, is it opensource? If yes, I could build it myself, how would the pricing work then? If not, does it comply with all the opensource licenses?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

If you're talking about Magic Earth: no. Despite the fact that Magic Earth is based on OpenStreetMap and has a quite good privacy policy, the application remains closed-source.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Now I may consider this app

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025

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