I'll repeat a question asked in an earlier thread on OM:

Do there exist apps that share their offline map data? As in: install app A, dowload offline map data for country xyz, use in app A, install app B, use same map data in app B (or C, D etc) without re-downloading the map data?

As I understood, that was not the case as each app uses its own format which is some underlying public geo info (presumably too big to have on device), filtered / processed in per-app fashion.

The sillyness & waste of this is obvious. So: any progress in resolving this situation?

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hadrien01 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This used to be a thing on Windows Phone, you could download maps in the settings and they would be available in the default Maps app, but also in HERE Maps, Transit, etc.

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palata an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The sillyness & waste of this is obvious

Until you realise that there is not one true way to show a map, and that different apps may actually have different needs. Suddenly it becomes obvious that not all apps can use the same shared offline data.

	▲	davidee 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		To further back this up, just because OSM might be a map's data source, it doesn't mean they use the same rendered vectors or images for the tiles. I make changes to OSM so they can be propagated to a cycling-specific mapping tool I use (it's a commercial tool with their own custom map layers) - it takes about 3-4 weeks from when a change is made on OSM for it to be incorporated into their data set. So yeah, it's not as simple as "we all use OSM so we'll just share all our rendered mapping values".

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ivanjermakov an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Storage constraints haven't been on developers' radar last 20 years.