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Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#71

Post by fouc »

drc500free wrote: post #54
bandergirl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don’t know what the author is talking about. I loved his comparisons over the years, but Google Maps (and others, really) are atrocious to use because of extremely low contrast; the blue version is much better (even if potentially “uglier”) For a product meant to be used outdoors, Maps does an awful job at being readable.

Interesting, do you mean contrast between non-roads and roads, or between map and text? I think (bear in mind I have some color blindness) that it's gone from a low-contrast road grid with high contrast text to a high-contrast road grid with low-contrast text. It would be easier to trace the shape of the roads, but that's not how I personally use a map. I'm much more focused on the name of a neighborhood or the name…

Seems like the road text still needs some fixing/adjustments, assuming they keep that light-gray blueish road color.

The apple map road color is a lot darker, creating more context. For the google map road color, they'd almost need to use something like a yellow text perhaps.

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#72

Post by lazycouchpotato »

The changes to foliage and general terrain I like.

The updates to roads and streets? Not so much. There is way too much emphasis on streets, distracting you from seeing the labeled places. The streets and highways shouldn't be a city's prominent showcase, the landmarks should.

That second-to-last image of Chicago streets around The Art Institute of Chicago show the lack of contrast between the green of a street and the green of the park - it all just blends in. It was better before, but just barely.

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#73

Post by NaiveBayesian »

londons_explore wrote: post #61
kristopolous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google maps can't be a cheap service to run. If this is the trade-off then ok. There's always OSM

Google telephones most businesses in the world multiple times per year to confirm opening hours and ask what their hours will be at Christmas/other holidays. Let that sink in. They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. And they put all that money in simply so users can be a little more certain that the opening hours sho…

These calls should be automated in most cases [1]. Still an impressive feat, but there is no way they are paying a large number of people to phone through all businesses in the world.

[1] https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#74

Post by stirlo »

coldsunrays wrote: post #9

> 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 find the new map far more cluttered than the old. You don’t want to see a dark grey line for every alleyway and minor path at the high level view. It just looks like a grey mess. The lack of contrasting colours between the main and minor streets (particularly interstates) is a massive step backwards and makes it far hard to plan your route at a glance.

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#75

Post by politelemon »

whalesalad wrote: post #8

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.

Disagree with that, I keep trying it sometimes and it's still inferior in too many ways. It feels like they don't use their own product, which wouldn't come as a surprise.

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#76

Post by politelemon »

kccqzy wrote: post #70
ra7 wrote: post #51

I never thought I would see the day when Google Maps would copy Apple Maps. Apple has absolutely nailed the map UI and even the UX (like richer details during navigation, requiring fewer touches to do things, etc.) is so good and well thought out. GMaps just looks so cluttered and bloated. The only reason for me not to use Apple Maps (in the US) is that they are far behind GMaps in POI data.

Several years ago when I was testing the Apple Maps navigation UI, I started a random navigation trip at home, looked around and tested the UI out without actually driving anywhere. Looked fine until I pressed the power button. Then I found that the Apple Maps hijacked my lock screen to display its own UI . That's the point I noped out of Apple Maps. This is malware-level behavior. No app should be able to override m…

No I agree, it's abusive behaviour but the people that use it are conditioned to accept it.

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#77

Post by serial_dev »

shellfishgene wrote: post #56

Has anyone else noticed that Google maps has lately become a lot worse on Firefox compared to Chrome? Zooming is less smooth, even with the whole map flashing in between levels, and in satellite view the tiles seem to load a lot slower.

We haven't, and I hope you are not implying that one of the largest tech companies in the world would take advantage of their complete dominance of the internet to weaken their remaining competition.

In all seriousness, it's not a new issue, if you search for it, there are complaints about it going back years.

Now, I'm sure there is a "non-evil" explanation, such as "oh we just test more with Chrome so we optimized for that, but we will try to convince an intern to install Firefox", "Chrome is just better", "Firefox doesn't have x and y features, so it's slow, but it they implement it, it will be fast, too"...

... and there are the "evil" explanation, "let's make one of our most popular products slightly slower on a competing browser to nudge people into using our browser".

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#79

Post by 0110101001 »

Haven't seen these new Google Maps yet, but from the screenshots, I couldn't disagree more.

Broadway is completely invisible in the "old" map, but visible on the "new" map.

But I guess the more usable contrast makes the Madame Tussauds label slightly harder to read?

Re: Google Maps Testing New Apple Maps-Inspired Map Style

#80

Post by londons_explore »

shellfishgene wrote: post #56

Has anyone else noticed that Google maps has lately become a lot worse on Firefox compared to Chrome? Zooming is less smooth, even with the whole map flashing in between levels, and in satellite view the tiles seem to load a lot slower.

It shouldn't flash. You probably have a bad webgl implementation. New graphics drivers?
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