Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
techcrunch.com
Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
1–10 of 232 posts
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#2I have to say that I've had completely the opposite experience from the author. GMaps almost always find what I'm looking for in a timely fashion, I find the offline maps useful when I'm traveling to a different city, and so on.
One of my favorite use cases is having GMaps give me directions by public transit, especially if there's a metro, which is nice if you're in a new city and want to save a few bucks on taxis or Uber.
That said, they've definitely made a few changes I haven't been a fan of. For example, offline maps must now be refreshed once every 30 days, and if you're offline when the timer runs out you won't be able to see the map. (Previously there was no time limit.)
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#3I stopped reading when the screenshot showed AR (Arkansas) and he said it was Arizona (AZ). If you are that geographically challenged, even Google Maps can't save you.
EDIT: I forgot that a sense of humor is not an option here. Geez.
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#4I am grateful that we are able to revert back to the old Google Maps for now. I hope that they keep this regression available to their users for a while.
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#5[deleted]
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#6Is this where we get to complain about how horrible Google Maps suddenly is?
Because wow. I can speak about this. It's terrible. First and foremost, and they have their "reasons" of course, but my Samsung Rant (yeah just a feature phone) always had great maps. Just a simple Java app, built on the maps API. Well that doesn't work anymore. Like, nothing. Google basically says "Get an Android phone, sucker." F U Google. Is what I think of that.
Secondly, the desktop (and basically the tablet experience too is the same) has gotten terrible. It takes a really long time before my mouse event matters. By this time, the screen, since it's still resolving and moving things around the canvas or whatever the hell it's doing, well by the time my mouse event registers, the object I wanted has moved away. I'm now doing something else!
Directions. Just so retarded. The accordion shit on the left. Just show me the effing directions, like you used to. I don't want to tab around a widget in the upper left. Plus you have toggle it open in the first place, and it's not very responsive, either.
Also, just simple double-clicking to zoom. Extremely less useful than it used to be: just this one simple thing.
I could go on. How awful. What happened?
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#7I don't see how citing 3 month old tweets is in any way relevant to a webapp.
Also the selectiveness of tweets and bug reports makes it all seem very labored and seedy and betrays a lack in of understanding in how complex software development (btw directwrite is behind a flag in Chrome 35)
And when you take into account that the author has a history of shitting on Google, it appeals like an attempt in catering to a like minded audience: http://techcrunch.com/author/jon-evans/
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#8I am grateful that we are able to revert back to the old Google Maps for now. I hope that they keep this regression available to their users for a while.
I am a little annoyed that I have to keep going through clickrobatics every time I change back to old Google Maps, and explain why each time. I've already explained a dozen times, quit pestering me. Also, get off my damned lawn.
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#9If you enter a search term and just hit enter Google will try and guess which result you want (like the I feel Lucky button). The auto-complete will give more options to pick the correct place name from duplicate names in different places. I think they do a bad job of surfacing the different possible results.
The Google Index does seem to lack a lot of more obscure names. In this case I would rather have high quality authoritative gazetteers than an algorithm that tries to guess what I mean.
Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
#10[deleted]
> The need to show some forest when you live on the other side of the world is minimalistic.
Really? I love reading about some exotic place somewhere and looking it up on google maps. How hard is it, really, to look for sambisa forest near you and when you don't find it, look globally?