41–50 of 121 posts
I like Google Maps. More than Waze, more than Apple. I just want Waze's socialized data in Google Maps. Not a redesign of the app :/
Aw t the very least, they have been organizationally combined within the company.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/8/23499734/google-maps-waze...
One of my biggest irks with Google Maps is how aggressively it shows pins for hotels, bars and restaurants, even on their search results map. Do users really feel the need for this constant in-your-face advertisement? But as I type this, I realized Google is primarily an ad business and whatever will drive that revenue will get pushed further. Oh well.
Yes, there are many possible conflicts of interest in mapping. This is why I'm excited to see the improving usability of Open Street Maps through apps like Organic Maps, and big commercial investments in open mapping data from the Overture Maps Foundation. In many cases OSM has much more detail than google maps, with business listings and addresses being the biggest exceptions I have encountered. Fortunately, busines…
I can’t believe there’s only one image of Apple Maps in that article. Every image is captioned with “See! Look how similar it is” but I have nothing to compare it to.
On that point I personally agree, though it seems there's at least a few other people in the comments here who prefer the new style.
One of my biggest irks with Google Maps is how aggressively it shows pins for hotels, bars and restaurants, even on their search results map. Do users really feel the need for this constant in-your-face advertisement? But as I type this, I realized Google is primarily an ad business and whatever will drive that revenue will get pushed further. Oh well.
The API doesn't show all this in satellite (aerial view) mode, so sometimes it's tempting to use a service that relies on the maps API.
But even with the API it seems that now the maps view has all those pins for places; I seem to remember it wasn't always the case, but I'm not sure.
Apple Maps rendering surpassed Google a lil while ago. I still use Google for a variety of reasons but I do think Apple’s map design is superior.
Depends on what you're talking about. For aesthetics? No question Apple's superior. For navigation? A tossup in my experience? For discovery of places and reviews? Google's so far ahead it's not even close. Apple's interface with Google's database of places and reviews would be the holy grail.
I can’t believe there’s only one image of Apple Maps in that article. Every image is captioned with “See! Look how similar it is” but I have nothing to compare it to.
The more useful some graphics would be in an article, the less likely it is to contain any.
Or shortcuts that might be interesting in a computer game, how the RTS units select their path, but hardly so when driving through a medieval village, instead of the somehow longer circular road that everyone should use.
> The new New York map above looks comically bad, almost like student-level work. I found the new NY map refreshing because of its higher contrast between the streets and city blocks. Feels like it's easier to get a handle on what's on the screen. Granted, whenever a product gives me the opportunity to opt for increased contrast, I usually go for it.
I found out several years ago that I have some form of color blindness - amusingly enough during a design review for a map we were designing. I had the exact same problem, with everything bleeding together in an indistinguishable mass, and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads when I asked how we could possibly ship something so unusable with no contrast.
I suspect there is something similar going on here. To me, the foreground text and background roads are nearly identical in hue and saturation. Is it high contrast to other people? The map I struggled with years ago was using two colors with similar saturation but different hues (a purple and a green/yellow), so I had to push to make sure that "high contrast" meant a difference in both hue AND saturation.
Shipping a couple map-related products has given me a real appreciation for how differently users can experience visual layouts. For one thing, technical people generally like maps a LOT more than the general population does, to the point that we take it for granted that it's the ideal way of presenting anything with a position component.
Quite a lot of people get overwhelmed by maps - they basically shut down and can't figure out the UI at all. Looking at the new version gave me that panicked feeling that I hear those users talk about.