I recently purchased a Nexus 7 tablet and have been playing around with the various offline GPS programs available for android. I downloaded both Navfree and OSMand to take them for a trial run. I prefer OSMand’s interface to that of Navfree, at least on the tablet, but there was one issue which has so far prevented me from using OSMand: namely, the fact that it seems to be horrible at finding addresses.
For example, when I try to locate an address in my hometown, OSMand shows “no buildings found” for almost every street. I can only select intersections. Navfree, on the other hand, finds any house address I give it very accurately. From what I can tell, both OSMand and Navfree use the same map data, from OSM, so theoretically there should be no difference in their ability to find these addresses (OpenStreetMap.org also finds my address quite easily), unless there is something different in the way OSMand is programmed (it seems only to be searching for buildings that were actually drawn on the map, whereas OSM.org and Navfree found the address even though nothing was displayed there).
I apologize if this is the wrong form, but I guess my question is: how is address data stored in OSM and why isn’t OSMand able to find addresses the same way OSM.org can?
For example (I just picked a random one), this house cannot be found by OSMand (in offline mode; I haven’t figured out how the online search works, or even where it is), but it can be in Navfree offline:
House 60, Arden Road, Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, 43214, United States of America
This one? If so, it’s no surprise that it doesn’t work: There are no Housenumbers in the data. You can still navigate to the road using OsmAnd by just entering nothing for the housenumber. Since you’re very new here (Welcome to OSM btw!): If you want to know how to add them just search in the Wiki for Housenumbers. It’s not that hard, but if you still have a question don’t hesitate to ask
The online search of OsmAnd would use Nominatim, so you can test this osm.org. In OsmAnd you can reach the online search via the arrow-icon in the lower right corner (at least in portrait-view on a medium-sized screen, might be in a different location for other devices) when entering an address (click it before entering an address: since it uses a different interface it would be resetted anyway).
Are you getting different locations for different housenumbers? If so they are likely guessing or using additional (likely non-free) data, if not they are apparently simply ignoring the housenumber. If you want to know for sure you would have to look at the source code (or ask one of their developers)
