What Happened to Google Maps? (justinobeirne.com) 263
Google Maps has reduced the number of cities it shows by up to 83% over the past few years, according to Justin O'Beirne. Maps, in addition, has increased the number of roads it showcases. O'Beirne, who writes about digital maps, in a blog post outlines the changes Google has made to its mapping and navigation service over the years. The side-by-side screenshots comparison on his blog post shows that Google has largely abandoned labelling towns and cities in favor of showing as many roads as it can. He has also looked into several elements of Maps from the design standpoint, and questioned Google's decision. He writes: If these roads were so important that they deserved to be upgraded in appearance, why weren't they also given shield icons? After all, an unlabeled road is only half as useful as a labeled one. [...] [Comparing Google Maps to a paper map] Even though it's from the early 1960s, the old print map has so much more information than the Google Map. So many more cities. So many more road labels. And the text size is comparable between the two. O'Beirne believes that Google has made these changes to better serve mobile users. "Unfortunately, these 'optimizations' only served to exacerbate the longstanding imbalances already in the maps," he writes. "As is often the case with cartography: less isn't more. Less is just less."
Justin O'Beirn is a moron (Score:2, Insightful)
He may want to ask "What happened to HTML?" instead. Requiring JavaScript just to be able to display text and a few images is insta-fail.
My Favorite (Score:5, Insightful)
Four point text on some street names.
So you zoom and and they shrink all the text back to its original four point font.
Google is supposed to have a lot of smart people.
Maybe they are all on a 5 year sabbatical.
Re:My Favorite (Score:5, Insightful)
Four point text on some street names.
So you zoom and and they shrink all the text back to its original four point font.
This. And it's been this idiotic for quite some time now. I mean seriously, how hard is it to detect the threshold of where you're zooming in for more streets and/or detail, and when you're just trying to f'ing read the goddam names?
Re:My Favorite (Score:5, Insightful)
I always love how you have to pan and zoom around to get the some of the major street names to show up. Even if the direction path actually takes you onto a street, sometimes it won't have a label but some tiny street off to the side with inexplicably have a label.
Re:My Favorite (Score:5, Interesting)
It's because all the UX experience people working on Google Maps are 20ish and can easily read small print. They have made the amazing discovery that if you make text smaller, you can fit more of it on a small screen. This is more efficient, and I'm sure whoever came up with this got highly praised.
My beef is that you can't even see some street names, no matter how you zoom in or out. They just won't appear, even if you're standing on them. This makes it quite frustrating trying to walk around in an unfamiliar city. Once again, the UX experience people I'm sure have weighed in and said you're supposed to input your destination and just follow the directions, not worry about which silly street you're on.
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No, they were all replaced by AI. It's the next big thing after computers. Get over it.
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Four point text on some street names.
Grey streets on Light grey city polygons.
...and that's jus
Terrain view with grey everything.
Elevation contour lines that only appear at certain zoom levels, then disappear again.
Satellite view that looks like a watercolor painting wrapped in plastic.
The inability to zoom in on, say, a shopping center and actually see POI for every business mapped there rather than just an arbitrarily selected sampling.
Creeks that show up much darker than roads, so in some areas all you see on the map are creeks.
company serves customers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: company serves customers (Score:2)
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Re: company serves customers (Score:4, Insightful)
Who the hell zooms out to a view where you can see 4 surrounding states as well when using maps for navigation? It's like holding a book at full arms length and then complaining about the size of the text.
Re: company serves customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Honestly, I'm surprised there's anyone who's not of the view that Google has been going backwards in terms of their map interface and quality of what's presented for a long time. Heck, Google Search too.. "Yes, Google, I did want you to actually find pages with all of my search terms in it, rather than you randomly deciding that I was just kidding about half of them...."
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Yes, Google, I did want you to actually find pages with all of my search terms in it, rather than you randomly deciding that I was just kidding about half of them...."
Even if you put a + in front of them they'll leave it out.......
Re: company serves customers (Score:2, Informative)
They deprecated the + thing a few years ago. They now treat anything in double quotes as having a + in front.
Re: company serves customers (Score:5, Funny)
UXtards happened.
User Interface professional: "1920x1080 is a standard desktop resolution. There is adequate space for menus with words and for the actual map to have words like street names/numbers on it."
UXtard: "ZOMG MOBILEFIRSTFLATDESIGN! Words ugly. Not like words. Not touch words with finger paw. Make words go away. No like reading. Use Javashit to hide everything that shows what you're looking for, make the menu fly out and obstruct 20% of the screen when you hover the mouse over the wrong pixels, and remember that nobody would ever want to have the last set of queries on while searching for directions! Two tasks, wipe out the first one! Elegant! Simple! Delete all functionality, then rewrite in latest Javashit framework Nothing but pure flat lines. Make all menus hide. Hamburger menu enough. !"
Re: company serves customers (Score:4, Insightful)
If I had mod points this post would get some positivity.
"Elegant!". Too often I see applications, desktop environments, Linux distributions, even languages, described as "elegant". Through experience I have learned to automatically mentally translate this into "ill conceived, badly implemented, fucking stupid, actually worse than useless".
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think there is more to it than just showing more roads. Looking at the old maps, they are cluttered. The city names obscure a lot of the roads and details. If you don't know exactly where a city is, scanning for it visually is inefficient when you can just search. Most users will be searching anyway.
Trust Google (Score:3)
Turn right HERE! [youtube.com]
Re: company serves customers (Score:3)
Well I'm finding myself increasingly turning to Open Streetmaps based software because of too many Google failures.
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What kind of idiot uses Google Maps for navigation, when they could be using Waze, by the same company, instead? Waze is designed for navigation, and it does a way better job than GM.
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I use Waze for general navigation, but I use Google Maps when navigating to a location for the first time. Google Maps is far more accurate in terms of the position of addresses and doing a location search based on terms. It also has lane directions which is extremely helpful in urban areas with dense exits with multiple exit and turn lanes. Waze is far better at traffic routing though, but I do with they had the Google Maps feature of highlighting alternate routes on the map with time estimates. Many times
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I tried out Waze after listening to people like you, and I found it completely lacking.
One big thing that's missing is alternate routes: when I'm driving, Google Maps will show alternate routes and how much longer (or shorter) they'll take. It tells you to take a turn, but then shows a gray route in another direction (or straight) with a box saying "X minutes longer". This is pretty useful if routes are almost the same, but I prefer one direction or I'm not able to get to the correct lane in time or somet
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I have tried maybe 20 times
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Ahh, so YOU are the guy who keeps turning onto the railroad tracks!!
When I carry old printed maps... (Score:4, Insightful)
...I still have hipsters looking at me with disdain.
1) My paper has never experienced a fault while on the move.
2) My paper has more detail than your electronic maps.
3) My paper allows me to see more of the map at once.
Google Maps is intended as a dumbed down service. Expect it to be dumbed down.
Re:When I carry old printed maps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hipsters are the type of people who made Lomography rich by buying overpriced, overmarketed crappy film cameras bought purely for their imperfect, anti-digital aesthetic. Hipsters are probably the people that started the current vinyl revival, and likely don't care that much about vinyl per se, so much as a twee different-for-the-sake-of-being-different-in-the-same-way-as-everyone-else form of rebellion.
Of course, they're probably just as "digital" as everyone else, if not more; Instagram is essentially that anti-digital aesthetic automated and faked via entirely digital means for the online social media age. However, the pretence is otherwise.
They're the sort of people who probably *would* use paper maps just for the sake of being different. (This says nothing either way about whether paper maps are actually better).
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2) Only if you never zoom in and out with an electronic map
3) again, only if you never zoom in and out.
Apparently the primary issue is that you can't zoom. Fix that, and learn to pre-load maps for remote areas, and you'll be fine. I've never had a fault on the move. The only benefit of paper maps is when hiking. Be without power for a week or so, and most electronic maps won't work so well. And using compasses doesn't work the same on an electronic map as paper.
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One of the things the army teaches people is how to fold a map so it's accessible and useful to you. You know those big pockets on cargo pants? They're map pockets. A folded map is still much bigger that any smartphone screen and gives you much better awareness of that gigantic cathedral that's just off to the side of your smartphone map. I do use my smartphone for navigation at times, but just as your actual desktop will always be bigger than your computer 'desktop', so a map will always be bigger than you
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Re:When I carry old printed maps... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) My paper has never experienced a fault while on the move.
Mine have... water got on it and smeared the damned ink from the inkjet printer.
2) My paper has more detail than your electronic maps.
Bet it doesnt, go ahead and ZOOM your paper in.
3) My paper allows me to see more of the map at once.
Having an active dot on the map serving as a "you are here" is far better than trying to figure it out with paper while driving. I've done it before, I used to always ride with a paper map on my tank bag. Bought a $650 GPS this year for the bike and it kicks paper maps asses so hard it's not funny.
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Overall I prefer electronic maps too, but there are definite advantages in paper:
They don't have batteries that expire when you need them most.
They still work in tunnels and parking buildings.
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Most definitely but not just driving. I have a terrible sense of direction and wouldn't know my north from south. Even a hand drawn map is a challenge when using public transport. You arrive at 8pm, in the dark, and you're lost in a new city because you exited the train station at the wrong exit. Retracing your steps or asking a local who doesn't speak English well... And of cours
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You've never backpacked before?
That means quitting your job, or letting your employment contract expire, to book a 90 day return flight to Europe and let the cards fall where they may. Sometimes that means deciding to leave a town at 10am checkout because it just feels time and booking a bus ticket to a random city on a whim. Don't overplan these things because spontaneity is exhilarating fun, whether you're 19 or 35.
Some people prefer guided tours where everything is planned for you but I would find them c
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I still *carry* paper maps on the road with me, but I very rarely ever use the darn things anymore. They're heavy, bulky, and having a blinking GPS dot that says "your dumb ass is right here" is rather handy sometimes.
I have my tablet loaded with MAPS.ME, which is quite possibly the most awesome mobile application ever. It allows you to download all the datasets for anywhere you'll be (which are based off the OpenStreetmap dataset), such that you have very finely detailed maps at any zoom level with abso
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I feel that paper maps are much better for developing a "feel" of the area/route. After looking at a paper map and tracing my intended route carefully, I am able to navigate by myself, more-or-less. But when I use navigation on a cellphone screen, I kinda just give up and do what the computer says because I just cannot see enough detail at once to really grok the geography. It may just be a problem with me ofc.
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...I still have hipsters looking at me with disdain.
1) My paper has never experienced a fault while on the move.
2) My paper has more detail than your electronic maps.
3) My paper allows me to see more of the map at once.
Google Maps is intended as a dumbed down service. Expect it to be dumbed down.
Real drivers know where they're going and don't need any form of maps. They look upon print and electronic map users alike with disdain!
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...and you can't use them safely while driving.
Paper maps have their advantages, but they are usually for planning when you can spread them out on a table before a trip AND if you have the right scale. During driving itself they are only better if you have an experienced co-pilot to serve as navigator.
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1) My paper has never experienced a fault while on the move.
Lucky you, my paper maps have suffered chocolate stains, insect damage (possibly related to the chocolate stains), a serious lack of updates, and darkness during the night because my driver refuses turn on the light inside the car while driving (or to stop the car to even look at the map).
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...I still have hipsters looking at me with disdain.
1) My paper has never experienced a fault while on the move. 2) My paper has more detail than your electronic maps. 3) My paper allows me to see more of the map at once.
Google Maps is intended as a dumbed down service. Expect it to be dumbed down.
If you're out hiking or camping, yes, I agree. Bring a paper map. Even better would be to bring a plastic coated map that is protected against weather and allows you to make marks on it with a grease pencil. But in my car I have my phone and my GPS unit that will allow me to view the map without needing a GPS satellite. I can manage just fine around town and even on a road trip. I know where I am going in general because I've already studied a map before I left. I usually want turn by turn directions
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Except that, at no time in the past 15-20 years have I ever found it preferable to have or use a paper map over a digital one.
But then I don't spend my days tracing extinct rail lines, or logging trails or the like.
The vast majority of use cases are better served by the form factor and information level they are using.
So how "wrong" are they really getting it?
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Aaannnd google maps still gets it wrong. A lot. There are utilities to both paper and gmaps.
And, paper maps often have intentional errors. [gislounge.com]
Same thing with Streetview (Score:2)
google maps has always been terrible (Score:2, Insightful)
Google maps has always been terrible compared to the old paper maps from the 1980s and earlier. It's like the Google Maps people threw every convention that road mapmakers used and decided they could do it better.
They still haven't done it better.
This minimization approach is everywhere now too (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody is adapting the web for the phones and removing important and useful features in the process. Whereas some sites in the past had a minimalist phone version we're getting stuck now with major sites eliminating critical features for everybody. I don't really know what to do about it, but I don't like it. I guess the only thing one really can do is look elsewhere. Unfortunately in many cases there are monopolies or features missing from other companies products / service in part due to these entities disproportionately smaller size.
Re:This minimization approach is everywhere now to (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Maps seems to remove features with every successive release of Maps for Android.
You used to be able to measure distances on the mobile Maps app, but not any more.
You used to be able to plot a course or set waypoints on your desktop computer with its big screen where you could see a lot more, then pull up that route on your phone with the mobile app. Not any more.
I used to be able to publish a link to my location plotted on an embedded map on my personal web site so my friends could track me on road trips. They took that away claiming that idiots were forgetting about their public links and violating their own privacy. So to protect people from their own stupidity, ostensibly, they removed that feature.
I've forgotten all the features that they've removed just in the past couple of years.
In recent versions Maps INSISTS that you turn on wifi in order to get an accurate plot of your location even with GPS already enabled. This tells me that they continue to map wifi access points as you move around to add to their database. It has nothing to do with improving the accuarcy of your location, that's BS.
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Where I live, OpenStreetMap is much better... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Where I live, OpenStreetMap is much better... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a really (basic) reason why Open StreetMap has longer legs than ANY of the commercial company solutions (like Tom Tom, Nokia HERE (ex-NAVTEQ), GoogleMaps, etc).
The problem is solely one of maintenance.
How do these companies get their maps? They do so by driving over roads with equipment that collects GPS data (of varying degrees of accuracy... not important to talk about methods/accuracy for this particular point).
Think about that... when a company first launches (like Google Maps did a number of years ago), they can be "accurate" because they just drive around everywhere for the first time. That's relatively easy to track.
But then... changes happen. Roads get new construction, or there are new areas that are built up (with new roads or roads get new paths).
How does one keep track of all the changes that can happen anywhere in the world? One can't.
Well... a centralized company "can't." It is logistically improbable to keep a map up to date unless a company is planning on continuously driving every road because, frankly, it isn't notified about all the little changes that can happen anywhere; it takes a really long time to "drive every road."
It is no surprise that Google Maps has started to suffer from this. They were driving around and collecting their own data to make the maps and compete with the "other maps/navigation companies."
To that end, a concept of community supported map update (like OpenStreetMap) makes sense; I *know* when the street outside my house has changed. I can go someplace and make an update/submit information about a change when it is community based. In fact, I had to do this on several map company sites because my street was "new" for a new sub-division.
Now, with that said, there is one thing I'll say about Google Maps that might be a saving (?) grace: anyone using Google on their cell is "phoning home" a ton of information... including location (wonder how Google knows about traffic conditions when they don't have implanted sensors/cameras on the roads?). If they were to try and leverage that information, perhaps the map data can be kept up to date by (indirect) consensus based on drivers GPS intel. Of course, you won't get a lot of detail about non-popular travel points. And maybe that's the point... if they're dropping detail related to the less traveled/popular locations, that can fit with dropping their "go drive everywhere and measure it with a Google truck" plan.
I don't work for Google, so I can't speak directly for their strategy.
It just seems to fit a common problem with keeping any map up-to-date. How any company can keep an eye on relevant changes in a timely fashion?
Looks like they've given up on trying to "get it all" and are falling back on easy data from the Google hive mind. 8/
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Look into Nokia HERE maps (seriously). It's free and let's you pre-load map data for a LOT of countries, so you can use the app completely offline. iOS and Android versions both exist.
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More is not better (Score:5, Interesting)
The best analogy I can give is comparing maps of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Paris, and France available from 2000-2005 (over the years, I bought a thick stack of them) when I was frequenty traveling to Western Europe with American style maps, for example, AAA maps from that era.
The European-produced maps I looked at were extremely detailed. They seemed to lose track of the forest for the trees. It seemed like they had to label everything, and that they were going for photo accuracy with road routes, etc.
On the other hand, AAA maps lack a lot of detail but they're much easier to use "at a glance." They aren't as precise, but they give you the gist much better. You were able to pull over and look at a AAA map and get your bearings within minutes. You could even carefully look at a AAA map while driving.
The European maps I looked at, on the other hand, I think were meant to be studied for 15 minutes before setting out on your journey. If you pulled out one of these maps while walking around in a sketchy area, for example in shadier parts of Amsterdam, you were liable to get mugged. On the other hand, armed with one of these European-style maps at your hotel room, you would need nothing else to get to your destination. The incredibly detailed map would give you an unambiguous route to your exact destination.
Now that they don't make many printed maps anymore, we have a similar situation for online maps. You don't want or need a super-detailed map on your phone. You want something that will get you to your destination in an expedient fashion. In fact, the map itself is less important than the route. Do you need to browse a map with every street, city, town, and park on your phone? No way. You type in the exact place you want to go and your phone takes you there. If you want to explore a detailed map at your leisure while sitting at home don't use smartphone app. Don't use Google Maps. Find something else. To most people this use case is not wanted, and added detail is unwanted distraction.
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It's called "Google Maps"; though, not "Google Driving Instructions". You note yourself that finding the route from A to B is only one possible use of a map. Google Maps is increasingly failing at most of those other uses. perhaps they should rename it to "Google GPS" and leave the actual map field to other companies.
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It's called "Google Maps"; though, not "Google Driving Instructions". You note yourself that finding the route from A to B is only one possible use of a map. Google Maps is increasingly failing at most of those other uses. perhaps they should rename it to "Google GPS" and leave the actual map field to other companies.
They should just call it the Google Positioning System... you know, GPS!
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Back in the day of free maps from gas stations, the ones from Esso (made by General Drafting Co.) were considered the best. I still have my copy of "New England Road Map" from 1988 (this one made for Shaw's Supermarkets, not Exxon). AAA maps are also quite good, but my local AAA is now closed.
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Now that they don't make many printed maps anymore,
FWIW you can still go into AAA and get a whole case of them free (for members).
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And every US state has official road maps for free at the first visitor's center after you cross the state line.
It's not just cartography anymore. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's UI design, and that's task-oriented.
Paper maps are highly versatile, general purpose tools. You can do all kinds of things with them, and generally speaking the more data they cram in (in a clever way of course) the better. They're like a swiss army knife; you want them to serve in any possible occasion.
Digital map displays are embedded in a user interface; they're a backdrop that provides the user with useful contextual information as he attempts to perform some specific task. The better you understand how the user performs that task, the more you can pare down irrelevant context that might detract from that task. Now there have been many times I wished the Google Maps UI was a little more versatile, but in general it does really well at the kinds of search and navigation tasks people mainly use it for, e.g. finding all the doughnut stores in Quincy, MA [google.com].
So basically you can't automatically apply criteria you'd use in a paper map to a digital display, although it's certainly helpful to under stand those criteria.
Not task oriented if it sucks for task! (Score:2)
Showing more roads would possibly be more task oriented IF YOU KNEW WHAT THE ROADS WERE.
If a map shows you to turn on a street, but does not provide a table for that street (has happened to me in Waze before) that SUCKS for the task at hand.
I would argue though that knowing what cities are around you is as much a part of the "task" of driving as knowing the roads.
It seems liker there should be some zoom level or perhaps rate of travel where precedence for roads vs. cities display would alter...
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If the UI doesn't suit the task, it's a bad UI. There'd be nothing unusual in that, that's for sure. I'm just saying that you can't criticize a UI for not being like a paper artifact; you can only criticize them for not supporting the task adequately.
Of course understanding how people use paper artifacts is an important first step in automating something that heretofore has only been done manually, something I've done frequently in my career but I suspect is becoming much less common these days.
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If use-cases vary, then they should have the product designed with selectable modes for the different use cases. And the ability to remember a user's selection.
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Which is why I always say never to assume that people use a system the way you would. But I do think the proportion of people who do this is a lot smaller than it used to be.
Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
What this does is highlight what Google is famous for- not giving any user choice. It runs throughout most of their products and platforms.
Instead of deciding for us how something must be to best meet the assumed majority, what would be nice would be to simply let us CHOOSE what options we want. What font size, if we want the scale meter to be shown, how much detail we want to see, etc.
I am sick of the "modern" "simple" design of everything that is supposedly so superior... because it isn't. Removing all controls and choices, hiding everything, getting rid of settings, etc. No thanks.
Re:Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sick of the "modern" "simple" design of everything that is supposedly so superior... because it isn't. Removing all controls and choices, hiding everything, getting rid of settings, etc. No thanks.
Agreed 100%. Let me choose the options and settings I like. Isn't that what computers were supposed to be all about?
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>"What this also highlights is how ridiculous it is that openstreetmap hasn't already made the criticism irrelevant"
I will say it is amazing how much openstreetmap has improved over the years. I really didn't expect it to get so nice...
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Yes, although the interface does seem to have inexplicably wildly different paths to accomplish the same task. Try, for example, adding a waypoint to a route whilst navigating and whilst not navigating, while keeping the destination unchanged in both cases.
mobile... (Score:2)
catering to the lowest common denominator, zombies.
It's the way of all things in time.
Other questions like this one (Score:2)
In many ways paper maps continue to be superior (Score:5, Insightful)
I continue to be amazed at how high the "bandwidth" of a traditional, printed, paper highway map--such as those still provided by AAA, and frequently by the states themselves--compared to anything you can get electronically. Scrolling a six-inch screen is no substitute for a square meter of paper surface printed in high resolution... and with judicious human preselection of points of interest.
For your typical 150-miles-to-a-specific-destination trips I continue to try to make do by printing out relevant Google maps, a small-scale one for the major highway routes to get there and a big one of the neighborhood. It never really works. The GPS and our car's NAV system will get you from point A to point B and show you in very good detail the local roads immediately surrounding your present position, but don't work very well for planning.
Nor are electronic maps very good for sketching, highlighting, or carrying with you. And paper maps don't need to be recharged.
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And paper maps don't need to be recharged.
In the car, it's a real shame they don't have some power points so that you could plug in your personal electronics to the car's electrical system. Then you could use the phone/tablet/whatever without worrying about the battery and how much charging you need to do before/after the trip.
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Because humans are visual animals and process visual cues more quickly than verbal. It is much easier to have a printed map on 8.5" x 11" paper with your route highlighted than it is to try and concentrate on what some distant voice is telling you where to go.
Re: In many ways paper maps continue to be superio (Score:3)
You really shouldn't be using paper maps while driving anyway. Too much detail is too distracting.
If your phone is telling you where to turn, it also has a screen showing a close-up and the orientation and distance to that turn. If you don't have a good place to mount that screen or a newer vehicle with Android Auto, you're missing something you can't get on paper.
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Google maps still doesn't rotate (Score:5, Insightful)
To this day Google maps does not allow you to rotate whatever you're looking at so it is aligned N-S. For example, if you look at Manhattan, NY, its gridlines are neatly arrayed. However, the island itself does not point N-S. It is slightly askew.
There is no way (that I am aware of) to rotate the map so the gridlines run E-W and N-S so when you print out a close up view everything lines up neatly on the page. Instead, the picture runs off diagonally.
Outside of rotating, when you drag the line for your trip to a different route it regularly ends up doubling back on itself. When you try to drag the offending part to match where you want to go, it may double back again.
Sure, if you fiddle with it enough you can eventually get it to have one continuous line but generally it's faster to clear the entire page and start over.
Google maps has gone downhill over the years. What used to be an easy way to map or view where you want to go has been reduced to the typical shiny so prevalent on the web. Forget ease of use, so long as it's shiny.
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> There is no way (that I am aware of) to rotate the map so the gridlines run E-W and N-S so when you print out a close up view
If that's REALLY important to you, you can download a jpeg file through the Google Maps API or capture a screen shot. Once you have an image file, you can rotate, crop, and print with Image Magick or any of a dozen similar programs.
The appity app guy is out: (Score:3)
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7/10, you only mentioned apps twice. :)
Readability? (Score:2)
How good are maps? (Score:5, Insightful)
I travel a fair bit, and my first stop is always to grab a free local tourist map, it makes such a huge difference once you have even a high level layout of the land.
Go maps!
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Cartography FTW!
Paper maps and a Dedicated GPS (Score:2)
The paper maps are used to get a general lay of the land and to determine what the route should be in case the GPS or Google Maps has erroneous information, AKA trying to route you over a summer mountain road in the dead of winter. Dedicated GPS because it only requires power work, if I am out exploring and intend to use the GPS only to get home or back to the hotel (great fun way to explore new areas), I don't need to have a data connection of remember to download maps before beginning my adventure and th
Why is Google Maps so bloated? (Score:2)
Google maps, where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
Good lord help me, Google god damned maps!
I'll try my best to keep it short and sweet:
The DUMBEST thing those idiots have done is remove the 50/50 split from the street view option. It's without a doubt, the most moronic @#$%ing thing they've done. It's incredibly frustrating.
Luckily I have a screenshot of what I'm talking about.
http://chattypics.com/files/5050split_sueprsqg9z.jpg [chattypics.com]
You used to be able to do a 50/50 split, one of what you're looking at and 2 of where you "are" on the map what direction you are "facing". Any idiot with basic N.E.S.W directional skills, found this incredibly useful.
We can still use street view and find what the building looks like that we're after, but it's much harder to identify where on the map it is, what direction it's facing, what the number is. We can do it, definitely, it's still down the bottom in the corner, VERY small - but the old system was incredibly easy to navigate in a combo street / maps view. I can't even put into words properly just how much superior the old version was, vastly is a big understatement.
Perhaps you guys are sick of me but I'm personally getting frankly, fucking sick of typing shit up like this time and time again about applications, phones, websites, because idiots feel compelled to change things, not for the sake of improvement, but for the sake of change.
It's times like this I WISH slashdot had a much larger audience, I WANT some piece of shit at Google to see this post and understand just how badly they fucked up. Yes, they did, fuck up, I'm sorry but there's no other way to put it.
Tired of these changes, tired of things becoming worse for the sake of it.
Google maps is literally an inferior product to what it was many YEARS ago.
P.S Don't bother going back through the feedback system to these wallies, they have no idea. It's as bad as sending feedback to the Government at this point
- Frustrated.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The DUMBEST thing those idiots have done is remove the 50/50 split from the street view option. It's without a doubt, the most moronic @#$%ing thing they've done. It's incredibly frustrating.
Perhaps you guys are sick of me but I'm personally getting frankly, fucking sick of typing shit up like this time and time again about applications, phones, websites, because idiots feel compelled to change things, not for the sake of improvement, but for the sake of change.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Google Maps is my resource of last resort when finding a route, or even a simple business location. For any given business or location, no matter how specific you are about its name or location, Google Maps will screw up their hours, phone number, address, or something else.
They really need a disclaimer for users of the service.
They also need to STOP appealing to users of the service to 'update' information for them. I don't work for you.
as long as we're having this debate... (Score:3)
Just want to say, reading a lot of good points from both sides of the argument in this discussion.
1) Don't like WAZE; don't need advertisements, or gamification. I just want directions and traffic info. Google usually does that just fine. WAZE sucks my battery dry even when I'm not using it.
2) Google maps UX is pretty stupid, most of the time. Used to be pretty obvious and functional, but now, with each new "upgrade", I end up doing a fair amount of clicking around to try to figure out what widgets do, and try to locate functionality that's been (apparently) deprecated. It is very frustrating and annoying, but much less so than Apple maps. The bar is low.
3) A long time ago, I used to deliver pizza. I did that job for about 4 years. I can imagine that google maps can work far better than paper in some situations. But a paper map does something that you don't really ever get into when you're driving in an area frequently, over a period of time. Google doesn't let you LEARN the area. It keeps you on the main/shortest route, which is not always the best route. And you end up relying on Google to get you around. If your signal goes, or your battery goes, or for what other reason, it's not working, then you are fucked, because you don't remember the area. If you use a paper map to view the whole area, and find your route, then you actually begin to LEARN the layout. The layout of an area is important. You learn where there are rail lines, and creeks or rivers, or freeway underpasses, which are HUGE bottlenecks, and when you're improvising or navigating on the fly, you need to have that knowledge in your head, not on your phone. There are also tiny details that become VERY important; that don't show up on electronic maps. No-left-turn signs, center-dividers. When you're on a busy urban or suburban street, and you pull out somewhere, and find you can't go the direction you want, you can sometimes get fucked into having to travel several blocks in order to get turned around again. This can set you back 10, 15, 20 minutes, depending on the traffic and situation. Google does that to me CONSTANTLY; but when you LEARN an area, you know these details in your head, and you can avoid those situations. You'll still need your paper map from time to time, but you're not going to have to refer to it constantly, as you would with a GPS/online map. The other skill you miss out on, is self-location or orienteering. The phone does that for you. (unless there's a technical problem). But the skill for figuring that out by reckoning, visual landmark checks, etc - goes away if you do not use it. That's also very important for on-the-fly navigation. With an electronic device, you can end up with imperfect information, and lag, which will put you a few hundred feet away, which is another situation where you can miss an important turn, and end up having to backtrack or re-route (which, fortunately, google does for you).
There is NO substitute for having an intimate knowledge of an area's quirks and foibles, which are not available even at the most detailed level for electronic maps.
Re: (Score:2)
Is the error in your neighborhood wrong on all map services? Your town may have put up misleading street signs when GPS was going through.
Re:They have multiple street names wrong.. (Score:4, Informative)
If the data on Google Maps is wrong then you can submit a correction [google.com]. They offer this function for a reason.
Re:They have multiple street names wrong.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Only if your issue fits in a small number of categories and you live in the right country. Issues like "I live on a street that has been there for five years, but you still think it's non-existent" apparently don't qualify as needing correction.
Re: (Score:3)
What street?
Re: (Score:3)
Google has the street numbers swapped on the highway I live on (even should on the east side, and odd on the west side). I submitted a problem to them almost 3 years ago and about a year later I get an email response that says "we've looked into it and you're right" and that they would send another email when the correction was made.
It's never been fixed.
Re:They have multiple street names wrong.. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it probably did get fixed, and then got broken again when they pulled data from upstream. Companies like Google and Apple get their mapping data from a number of providers, then merge that data together. If those providers give them bad info, if they just fix it in their local database, it will get stomped on by the next data pull. To fix it correctly, it has to get pushed up to the providers. If multiple providers give them incorrect data, it has to be fixed upstream by multiple upstream providers. Worse, those providers, in turn, get their info from multiple providers. This continues until you reach some government contractor.
If you're really unlucky, the city planning office tells that contractor not to fix the data, because Google Maps says that it is correct. And then Google fixes it on their side, and then the city sends the wrong data to TIGER, who sends it to somebody else, who sends it to somebody else, who sends it to Google or Apple, reverting the fix all the way down the line.
Submit a second report about the problem. Then at the same time, submit a report to your city planning office. Odds are at least even that they're the problem.
Re: They have multiple street names wrong.. (Score:2)
I just submitted it to google again. It's correct in Apple maps and on my TomTom.
Waze is wrong too, but I assume they get their data from Google.
Re: (Score:2)
Given that Google owns them now, I'd say it's a safe bet.
Re: (Score:2)
Or bandwidth... Google Maps is slow on my connection.
Re: Disk space? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So when will Apple bring their maps to Android?
Re: (Score:2)
You've got a good point, but rendering paper maps directly actually doesn't work as badly as one might think. Try this site www.topozone.com. Normally, I'd call it up to verify, but for complex reasons I'm stuck on my no-Javascript support but very fast browser for a few hours.
Re: (Score:3)
I like the 'Catholic' countries best. I haven't been religious for many a year but in some cities it's impossible to get lost because the Lord is guiding you home.
Literally - Donostia has a yuuuuuuge statue of Jesus on the top of a hill. Stumble out of a bar at 4am and no matter how drunk you are, you can find your way home relative to the position of Jesus in the sky!