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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

#111

Post by TheDong »

londons_explore wrote: post #86
retSava wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snarky, but I expect that to be a kind-of circle with a small radius, around their offices and the favorite places their employees in SF visit. Never heard of this happening, and not something I'd expect google to do. I'd expect them to send emails at most, with a link to some page that is broken for anyone not using Chrome, then no support available.

Maybe my business is a corner case which avoids the automation - I am open usually 9-5ish, but can be open anytime if a customer rings the well and waits for someone to get out of bed. Google has an actual human call every 2-3 months, who usually just asks the opening hours, confirms one other detail (usually the website) and then says goodbye.

> Google has an actual human call

I guess congrats to google on passing the turing test

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

#112

Post by drc500free »

fouc wrote: post #90
drc500free wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's super interesting, because to me the new one literally looks like a captcha! It would be completely unusable with careful perusal, let alone glancing down while navigating. The words all have lines of nearly the exact same color overlayed so I can't read them without squinting and going letter by letter. I found out several years ago that I have some form of color blindness - amusingly enough during a design r…

when I hear "captcha" I think of mostly black text on white background. The text is made hard to read by distorting the font, and possibly drawing a line through it. So I find your analogy of "literally looks like a captcha" to be confusing.

To me that's what it looks like (minus the text distortion). The color of the roads is nearly identical to the color of the text, so it's text with a bunch of random lines going through it so that I can't easily read it. From other people's reactions, I suspect color blindness at play here.

Are the roads and text very different colors to you, so that you can easily read the text?

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

#113

Post by Toutouxc »

bobek wrote: post #37

TBH https://mapy.cz/ are still the clear winner in map presentation and usefulness.

Absolutely. I’m actually Czech, so they’re my no. 1 choice anyway, but I’m currently on vacation in Italy and the maps are still great and very useful.

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

#114

Post by Toutouxc »

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…

I get what you’re trying to say and it makes sense if you think of your phone as a tiny computer. An app should not be able to escape out of its window and app-level capabilities and it should be clear if an app is running or not.

I don’t share the same view, because I consider my iPhone an appliance. If my goal is to get to a place, I’ll let the appliance do anything and everything to get me there, including changing the UI or jumping out of my hand and leading the way.

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

#115

Post by bandergirl »

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…

I regularly use the map to plan events and the inability to see roads clearly makes it difficult. Sometimes small paths won’t show up until you zoom in all the way and even then they’re kind of lost in the bad contrast.

Maps nowadays look beautiful compared to the old style paper maps, but are comparatively unusable.

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

#117

Post by blendergeek »

franga2000 wrote: post #88
blendergeek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. They may have done this in years past. I have worked in fast food for the last decades and I get Google's calls. They are all automated and the robot on the other end never understands me because the hours of the places I manage aren't simple enough to explain to Google's AI.…

> Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. What do you mean by this? The spec seems to allow it https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours/specif...

The spec is very detailed and allows a lot of granularity. Unfortunately, real businesses often don't have set holiday schedules but rather play it by ear each year. OSM has no way to add "this business will be closed on these holidays this year, next year might be different". When lots of businesses introduced modified hours during the Covid lockdowns, there was no concept of temporary opening hours so a "opening_hours:covid19" was introduced. Older data consumers simply ignored that tag. More generally OSM is only for data that is (mostly) permanent. Adding "this business will be closed for Christmas this year" is not OSM data. "This business is closed on Christmas" can be added on OSM. But many businesses don't plan that far ahead as to have set announced holiday hours that can be written in the OSM opening_hours syntax.

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

#118

Post by blendergeek »

lode wrote: post #93
blendergeek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. They may have done this in years past. I have worked in fast food for the last decades and I get Google's calls. They are all automated and the robot on the other end never understands me because the hours of the places I manage aren't simple enough to explain to Google's AI.…

> Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. Of course it can. I regularly add opening hours of businesses I frequent on OSM, including special cases like public holidays.

But nothing on OSM is "up-to-the-minute". Many OSM data consumers are months behind OSM discourages putting anything temporary on the map. While I do add OSM business hours including public holidays a lot, this isn't always possible when businesses don't have pre-planned holiday schedules.

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

#119

Post by inadequatespace »

Humbly8967 wrote: post #22
plibither8 wrote: post #4

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…

The non-starter with OSM for me is lack* of high-DPI ("retina") support, making it like rubbing my eyes with scratchy wool when I try to read it

* well, there's https://osm.rrze.fau.de/testhd.html , but that has no search.

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

#120

Post by anukin »

tigroferoce wrote: post #99
gman83 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to use Apple maps.I just can't commit to a service that's only available on some of my devices & computers.

Fun. I get your point, but I, on the other hand, can't happily commit to a service that is "free". The real problem of Apple Maps is that outside of the US it's quite poor, so one is forced to use google maps quite frequently.

I am of the opinion that Apple Maps are pretty bad outside of Cali. The locations are not exactly accurate for the remote locations of the United States. They seems to be exceptionally interested in improving lives of Californians who use iPhone.
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