Live data from Hacker News

The New Google Maps

maps.google.com

111–120 of 193 posts

Re: The New Google Maps

#111

Bing Maps are quite aware of the zip code change that happened to my neighborhood more than a year ago and can map my address quite well. Google Maps are still pointing to a location that does not exist in real world unfortunately. I'd have hoped that they fixed these things first.

Have you submitted a 'Problem Report'? I had a similar issue that was fixed in about 3 days after I submitted the report. They can only fix things that they know about.

Submitted the first time I saw the problem last year, didn't bother doing it again after that...

Re: The New Google Maps

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you want a billion new users all slamming your brand new codebase and infrastructure all at the exact same time? Sure Google can handle scale better than anyone, but a stampede is still a stampede. Soft launches are way safer and easier to manage.

Google has been using A/B testing for quite some time I think; they even do it with Chrome nowadays. Wouldn't that work to manage load?

IO is the place to launch new products. It's just slightly more impressive than showing a message "And btw. we've lunched this new version of maps. Check it out (with the probability of 0.00053846)".

Re: The New Google Maps

#113
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been using A/B testing for quite some time I think; they even do it with Chrome nowadays. Wouldn't that work to manage load?

You mean instead of handing out N invites, just pick N users at random? Why would that be better? You confuse and potentially upset the randomly-chosen users, and you disappoint the eager people who actually want to try the new thing.

When google does first-come first served (Google I/O last year) they get dinged. When they do randomized (Nexus4 initial sale and this year's I/O) they get dinged.

Fact is, they can't satisfy everyone. The algorithm used to differentiate the few from the many will obviously upset some groups.

Would you rather they charge for it? That'd be the Microsoft thing to do [1].

[1] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1011983/microsoft-t...

Re: The New Google Maps

#114
post #38

I feel bad for the Apple maps team - trying to catch up to a fast moving target.

See this is what people don't get. Apple isn't trying to complete with Google Maps.

They are just trying to get a 95% default solution to prevent Google from using its leverage to make changes to the OS e.g. sending more user information to Google. And by all accounts they have achieved this.

Re: The New Google Maps

#115
post #73

Google map was the one of the first web applications that revolutionized the web with Ajax. This new Google map could be another one that revolutionize the industry again with WebGL.

Two years ago they had an experimental version of Maps that used WebGL and was much smoother than the current one, but they removed it for some reason: https://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

I think it was because of the maturity of WebGL in browsers 2 years back.

Re: The New Google Maps

#116

Not sure if everybody sees the same example but the map I see with different ways by car and by train is cute but obviously very wrong. A railway is rarely straight and even less so in the middle of the Alps...

The public-transit lines just connect the different stations/stops. Riders don't usually care so much where exactly their bus or train goes through, since they can only alight at certain points.

Re: The New Google Maps

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think it was stale or stagnated exactly. You probably saw recently a few posts about how much work goes into them and why exactly they're better than Apple's or Microsoft's. It's very subtle and fundamental stuff. They didn't change much, it's true, but that's because the competition was so bad and they leapfrogged them by so much at the beginning. We'll see how the new look works in action - I can't s…

In comparison to http://here.com Google Maps was stale.

For some reason, Kerguelen island and quite a few others in the Indian Ocean don't even exist on Nokia's maps.

Re: The New Google Maps

#118

"Request an invite". Dear god, Google still thinking it's a cute little startup. It really is the Microsoft story all over again.

This is echo chamber mentality. Why does request-an-invite imply little startup? It just happens to be a strategy startups regularly employee, but why is it only legitimate for startups? Your criticism is hard to parse any other way than that you don't like Google, so whatever they do you find an interpretation of how their behavior is disingenuous and annoying. How the wider consumer world will view this is an open question, but I very much doubt anyone but the tech 1% will even have this thought cross their mind.

Re: The New Google Maps

#119
post #73

Google map was the one of the first web applications that revolutionized the web with Ajax. This new Google map could be another one that revolutionize the industry again with WebGL.

Two years ago they had an experimental version of Maps that used WebGL and was much smoother than the current one, but they removed it for some reason: https://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

I don't know about you, but I always had the "Want to try MapsGL?" link down in the left sidebar.

Now, since I did have MapsGL enabled, it says it's been integrated into the new Google Maps that's being previewed here.

Post reply on HN