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Google Maps has become an eyesore

fastcompany.com

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Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#631

Post by moritzwarhier »

pickledish wrote: post #491
xcdzvyn wrote: post #9

It's inflammatory, but this website is worse. There's some video playing of a stranger eating mustard skittles taking up the bottom quarter of the screen.

Yeah, this pissed me off too. I’m currently combing through iOS safari settings trying to find out how “allow videos to autoplay” was ever enabled (there is a setting for this in “accessibility” but doesn’t seem to fix this website at least so I’m still looking)

Sadly, autoplay-blocking seems to be even more of an arms race than ad blocking.

Apart from that, as long as this garbage takes up screen space, it's still not enough.

I hope that the person who invented the "sticky video" idea has a long and happy life, in a completely different job, completely separated from anything that has to do with marketing.

This is the dark pattern that I hate most on mobile by a 1000 miles.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#632

Post by moritzwarhier »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #9

It's inflammatory, but this website is worse. There's some video playing of a stranger eating mustard skittles taking up the bottom quarter of the screen.

Really, if people here wouldn't use ad blockers and desktop computers in the majority, noone would be discussing the article at all.

It's not realistic to discuss UX while plastering your website with things like "mustard skittles hahaha" unless you want to deceive people and dumb them down.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#633

Post by KMag »

vidanay wrote: post #408
Ycdr4thfdd wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even worse is that often I'll click "restaurants", zoom in all the way, and then click "Search this area", yet Google will still refuse to show some popular restaurant, even when there are no other restaurants displayed in the window. The only way to get those restaurants to show up is to search them by name. Not sure if they're intentionally penalizing certain restaurants, but it's pretty bad.

Also the "cuisine" filters for restaurants appears to be completely irrelevant. You will still get results for Chinese restaurants even though you have selected "Pizza".

It would seem that the revenue-optimizing ML has learned that the median user could really go for Chinese take-out right about now (for all values of now), no matter what sort of food they started out looking for, so it's always going to show up.

I know median and mediocrity already share a common root, but I wish there were a clever portmanteau describing ML-optimizing for the median user leading to a mediocre experience. "Medianocre" just sounds like an eggcorn, so I presume 99% of readers would take it as a mistake instead of a neologism.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#634

Post by KMag »

bluGill wrote: post #553
jhbadger wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's annoying, but if you are serious about taking public transit, you really do need to use the apps for whatever city you are in to get accurate information in my experience. Yes, Google Maps will tell you when a bus or metro is coming, but they often get it wrong, claiming that buses that run only on weekdays run on Saturday and so on.

Even if google maps is right, it isn't helpful to how people ride transit. Do you want to ride the 4 or 9 or 99? It doesn't matter, all of them go to where I'm going, but I have to choose when really I should just go to the stop and catch the first bus. This is a real situation for me where I selected the 4, but it turns out that it went by half a block before I reached the stop, and google maps got mad when I got on…

Right. Last I tried, it's terribly difficult to get Google maps to show you directions for a bus route you just jumped on (and so it thinks you'll miss if you try to board).

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#635

Post by turkishmonky »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #443
wredue wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GeForce experience tracks every single window you have open, sending the title and window information, along with every single spot that you click on your screen to Nvidia, tied to your now mandatory account. That was a couple years back. Who knows how much more invasive it’s gotten since. Oh. And this data is considered to be “valuable debugging information”, so is not prevented by opting out of analytics.

Good to know! Uninstalling when I get home. Windows has really become a big bag of certified malware and adware. I always feel a bit dirty when I play a game on my windows pc, and now I know why.

I actually was racking my brain since I haven't seen any major nvidia callouts on my DNS block, but I use a 3090.

Then I remembered I game in linux, on steam.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#636

Post by CogitoCogito »

My current way of using Google maps is to use it for searching and localization and then use what I call a "real" map app afterwards. I.e. on mobile I will use Guru Maps or on my desktop I'll use some version of Open Street Maps.

My main issue with Google maps is that it isn't really a mapping application anymore; it's a navigation application. It's not really suited to being used as a map (e.g. it jumps around randomly, it hides road names, etc.) and instead focuses on showing you how to get somewhere assuming you're basically a robot following their instructions (e.g. navigation while driving). That's fine and all, but really isn't what I want out of a mapping application. I'd choose a paper map any day over Google maps.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#637

Post by DropInIn »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #616
DropInIn wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you mean "Doublespeak" rather than "Doublethink".

No, “doublethink” is the term introduced in Orwell’s 1984 .

And those who've actually read it also know that Newspeak is also a term he coined and that since we don't actually have newspeak, the natural extrapolation of the term Doublethink into a spoken application is the term Doublespeak.... Right?

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#638

Post by JohnFen »

behringer wrote: post #504
wredue wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GeForce experience tracks every single window you have open, sending the title and window information, along with every single spot that you click on your screen to Nvidia, tied to your now mandatory account. That was a couple years back. Who knows how much more invasive it’s gotten since. Oh. And this data is considered to be “valuable debugging information”, so is not prevented by opting out of analytics.

I use glasswire firewall and I just checked nvidia's activity and it doesn't even amount to a megabyte (uploaded) in the last week. I'm thinking this is tinfoil hat stuff.

> it doesn't even amount to a megabyte (uploaded) in the last week.

That seems like a lot for a piece of software that doesn't have to send anything whatsoever in order to do its job.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#639

Post by urbandw311er »

izacus wrote: post #571
JSavageOne wrote: post #521

Criticize Google Maps all you want, but it is easily one of the most useful apps to me, especially as someone who's been been living nomadically the last 5 years. It's kind of scary how dependent I am on this app. Anytime I need to find a restaurant, dentist, electronics store, etc. - I'm looking first on Google Maps and my life is basically dictated by the results. I have lists like "Places to Work" which is a list…

Critising products that serve billions of users every day as "useless" is a latest fun past time for a sect of contrarian HNers that can't think of the world outside their use-cases and bubble.

High usage figures does not equate to being perfect or untouchable. Often it’s just a result of market dominance, or worse.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#640

Post by moomoo11 »

izacus wrote: post #600
moomoo11 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with sharing my opinion when the subject is that google maps has become an eyesore (aka sucks visually)

The fact that your love of a phone has nothing to do with it. If I'd wanted to look at ads I'd open Google not HN.

Did you read the article? It is about the mobile experience....

One of the quotes was: "Google Maps still holds around 80% of the mobile market. But in recent years, I’ve found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the Google Maps experience, especially when it comes to general navigation and exploration of a map area."

And I wanted to say that overall, I barely feel any frustration as an iOS user. It is the truth for me, and my opinion. So I'm gonna say it.

Going to take a wild guess and say you didn't.

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