StreetComplete on iPhone: What to Map, and When to Use Every Door
Tomorrow’s walk is a chance to improve OpenStreetMap, but there’s no plan beyond that. Which fits the walk better, StreetComplete’s quests or Every Door’s list of shops?
Choose the survey you want to do
If your next walk has no mapping plan beyond “I'd like to help,” StreetComplete gives you one: nearby objects become questions about missing details. If your plan is to visit every shop on a particular block, Every Door's list of places provides a more direct starting point. Both contribute to OpenStreetMap, but they organize your attention differently.
That choice now includes a stable iPhone version of StreetComplete. The project announced version 64.0 on October 19, 2026, following its September 30 public beta announcement. The release completes the migration of its map interactions and interface to a multiplatform foundation. For contributors, the useful result is access to its question-based field surveys on iOS. StreetComplete 64.0 release · Public beta announcement
iPhone owners already had OSM editors, including Every Door and Go Map!!. StreetComplete adds a particular way to contribute: answer a focused question on site and let the app turn it into the appropriate data edit. Its arrival does not require an existing mapper to abandon a tool that already fits their survey.
| Your task | A useful starting point | How the work proceeds |
|---|---|---|
| Find something nearby to improve | StreetComplete quests | Answer questions derived from missing information. |
| Survey a street's shops | Every Door amenities mode | Work through nearby places and update their details. |
| Confirm that previously surveyed shops are unchanged | Every Door checkmarks | Record the date on which their information was confirmed. |
| Edit ways and tags directly | A general editor such as Go Map!! | Select the geometry or attributes to change yourself. |
What happens when you answer a quest
OpenStreetMap is shared geographic data maintained by contributors. StreetComplete edits that database under your OSM account. An uploaded answer changes information about a mapped object, making that observation available to other contributors and services. About OpenStreetMap
Consider a road that already exists in OSM but has no name recorded. StreetComplete can ask for its name. After reading the sign at the location, you enter the name and the app prepares the corresponding edit. You do not need to start by learning the tagging syntax. The highlighted object identifies where that answer will be stored. If you select the neighboring road, the name goes onto that road even when you copied the sign accurately. How StreetComplete processes answers
Quests depend on the data already present and the rules for each question. Two neighborhoods can therefore show very different work. A missing quest does not mean that an object does not exist on the ground, or that every detail about it is complete. The app is selecting questions it can ask in that particular data context. LearnOSM's explanation of quests
A walk past a path, a car park and a charger
Imagine a short survey that passes these three objects. At a path, a surface quest asks for what is underfoot. At a car park, a question may ask what parking costs. At a charging station, it may ask how many sockets are present. This is an example route, not a promise that those three quests will appear in every neighborhood.
The surface answer should describe the highlighted section. A small asphalt repair in a paved path does not necessarily describe the entire section. OSM's surface attribute concerns material and structure; surface regularity and suitability for wheeled movement are described by other properties, including smoothness. Selecting asphalt consequently does not establish that the route is comfortable for a wheelchair or stroller. OSM surface documentation
Version 64 adds questions about parking charges, charging-socket counts, whether cars can charge at a station and whether a bicycle can be locked while charging. It also adds questions about vending-machine types and who may enter certain places. These give a surveyor concrete things to inspect, rather than asking for an open-ended description of a facility. The new quests in version 64
At the car park, read the conditions alongside the price. A complicated tariff should not become a guessed flat charge simply because that is easier to enter. At the charger, count what the question asks for: sockets and parking spaces are different units. If the available form cannot express what you understand from the sign, a note can preserve the observation for another mapper.
For a first outing, choosing one kind of information makes the work manageable. Surveying path surfaces gives you repeated practice with the same question. Trying to inspect every shop, entrance, bench and charging station on the same walk keeps changing what you need to observe.
Where Every Door offers a different workflow
Every Door organizes work into modes. Amenities covers places such as shops and museums; micromapping covers features such as benches, trees and lamp posts; buildings includes addresses and entrances. Its quick-start guide describes an explicit cycle of downloading data, editing offline and regularly uploading changes. That fits an outing organized around a class of places. Every Door's quick start
Its checkmark is particularly useful on a repeat visit. The mark records a check_date when an amenity's existing information is confirmed. Suppose you mapped half a shopping street last month and return to find the same businesses still there. You can record that confirmation without inventing a change to the shop's name or type. This is maintenance of existing data, not a rating or a favorite. What Every Door's checkmarks mean
StreetComplete's Places overlay also allows adding a point for a new place, and its Things overlay handles street furniture such as benches and bicycle parking. You can start by answering quests, then switch to Places when you discover a shop that is missing from the map. StreetComplete's overlays
For direct way and arbitrary-tag editing, Go Map!! provides a broader editing workflow. That gives you more control over what changes, along with more decisions about the object and its geometry. It is useful when the job is to edit a way itself; it is more work than a focused question when all you have learned is a road's surface material. Go Map!! editing guide
Prepare the area and understand when answers leave the phone
Connect an OpenStreetMap account before contributing, then load the area you intend to survey. Open a nearby quest before leaving to see how the app highlights the object and presents the question. This small rehearsal helps establish whether you will be inspecting a whole road segment, an individual point or a building. Getting started with an OSM account
StreetComplete supports offline surveying, so obtain the relevant area data before losing connectivity. Answers made without a connection remain on the phone for a later upload attempt. Having downloaded questions is different from arriving somewhere new and expecting the app to fetch unknown data without a network.
When connected, StreetComplete uploads answers immediately by default. There is no assumption that every answer waits for a final document-style Save action. Every Door's explicit upload cycle may feel different if you switch between the apps. In either case, the end of a walk is a useful time to check for changes still awaiting transmission. StreetComplete's upload behavior
Leave an observation when you cannot give an answer
A locked entrance may prevent you from inspecting a facility. That establishes that you could not reach it, rather than that it does not exist. Move on without answering, or use the quest's alternative-answer options to say you cannot tell and leave a note. Describe the object and what prevented a reliable answer so another contributor has a concrete next step.
If you tapped the wrong answer, open the recent-answer history, select the quest and inspect the recorded response before undoing it. The project's FAQ covers undoing answers that have not yet uploaded and recently uploaded edits. An undo of an uploaded answer is itself a change sent back to OSM, so it is best treated as a way to correct a discovered mistake promptly rather than an unlimited eraser for old history. Notes and undo behavior
Why the map can look unchanged after an edit
First establish whether the edit has uploaded. A queued answer is still local. After transmission, inspect the OSM object's attributes or edit history to see the data change. A new parking charge may never alter the parking icon: a map style does not display every stored property.
Map pictures also go through rendering and caching. Updates can appear at different times at different zoom levels, and services using OSM manage their own displays. Repeatedly adding another copy of an object will not accelerate that process. Check the existing object's data before trying to make a visual change happen. OSM's explanation of map updates
An offline answer may also meet newer information when it uploads. For example, another contributor may have named a road while your phone still held a question about its missing name. StreetComplete downloads the current object and checks whether the question still applies and the edit can be made. If it cannot resolve the conflict, it drops the change and refreshes nearby data. Your answer may therefore be absent from your contributions even though the road now has a name. How StreetComplete handles conflicts