Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 232 posts

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#221

Post by liotier »

noir_lord wrote: post #218
liotier wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that what Mapbox gives you is Openstreetmap data ?

Yep, I researched the options thoroughly. I like that mapbox wraps it all up, clearly documents it and provides it at a reasonable cost, to me that is a value added worth paying for is all.

> Yep, I researched the options thoroughly.

Interesting - someone used you comment as validation that Mapbox provides insufficient attribution to Openstreetmap: https://twitter.com/Anonymaps/status/465216595242274817

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#222

Post by mhartl »

I didn't understand what the big deal was until I drove to downtown LA last night. Google Maps turn-by-turn directions instructed me to make a U turn in the middle of the 110S freeway (which would have crashed me into the center divider). Then, on the 10W, it kept trying to have me get off the freeway and then get right back on.

I don't know WTF happened, but this is an all-hands-on deck situation for Google: must fix ASAHP.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#223

Post by maxerickson »

mhartl wrote: post #222

I didn't understand what the big deal was until I drove to downtown LA last night. Google Maps turn-by-turn directions instructed me to make a U turn in the middle of the 110S freeway (which would have crashed me into the center divider). Then, on the 10W, it kept trying to have me get off the freeway and then get right back on. I don't know WTF happened, but this is an all-hands-on deck situation for Google: must fi…

In a small town I know, I think they switched their data provider (I guess to the Census TIGER data). I don't have a great memory of what they had, but I recently noticed some alignment problems that I hadn't noticed in the past.

What I think I remember isn't a great point of reference, but a switch to a cheaper, lower quality data set would explain problems with routing.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#224

Post by noir_lord »

liotier wrote: post #221
noir_lord wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I researched the options thoroughly. I like that mapbox wraps it all up, clearly documents it and provides it at a reasonable cost, to me that is a value added worth paying for is all.

> Yep, I researched the options thoroughly. Interesting - someone used you comment as validation that Mapbox provides insufficient attribution to Openstreetmap: https://twitter.com/Anonymaps/status/465216595242274817

Ah thanks for that, I commented on the twitter thread as well.

Interesting that was the conclusion someone projected though.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#225

Post by liotier »

bobbyi_settv wrote: post #140
noir_lord wrote: post #59

I was trying to find out how much it costs to use Google Maps in a business product (SaaS) I literally could not find a price without the "give us your details and our sales team will be in touch" which to me translates as "We need to work out exactly where to stick the hose to suck out the money". Compare that with this https://www.mapbox.com/plans/ . I know who will be getting my money in the near future.

Have you looked at OpenStreetMap? Is there anything in particular that it lacks compared to Mapbox?

Do you realize that what Mapbox gives you is Openstreetmap data ?

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#226

Post by dennisgorelik »

naterator wrote: post #158
cousin_it wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you would make a dichotomy between the "old guard" and the "hipsters", and blame the latter for the problems of the new Google Maps. If there's anyone on Earth who I can name as part of the "old guard" of online mapping, it's Bernhard Seefeld, who invented draggable tiled online maps when he launched map.search.ch in 2004. (Google Maps was launched in 2005.) For the last few years he's been working as the…

IMO it's definitely Second-system syndrome. Maps worked fine and didn't need much added/changed, but someone decided that they needed to keep iterating and now we're stuck with all the cludge built on top of it now.

It wasn't iteration. They threw away code and started from scratch. Things you should never do [1].

Several months ago Google releases totally new version of Google Maps. Google Maps consistently stays as a poor product since then. I think that even first version of Google maps (introduced in 2005) was better.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

  When you throw away code and start from scratch,
  you are throwing away all that knowledge.
  All those collected bug fixes.
  Years of programming work.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#227

Post by dennisgorelik »

k0 wrote: post #116
Pacabel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is absolutely correct. I actually had to use Bing Maps today to look up some directions because the new version of Google Maps was pretty much unusable. As for why UX disasters like this can happen, I think it generally comes down to one thing these days: "hipsters". Those of us who've been in industry for a long time have no doubt seen this happen before. A relatively well-established product has…

+1 for Bing maps [shudders]. I tried yahoo maps and it is nearly as crappy as the new google maps...hell, Apple maps is superior to the new google maps...and I didn't see that coming.

Could the current Google Maps program manager be a saboteur from Apple or Microsoft?

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#228

Post by dennisgorelik »

shyn3 wrote: post #146
kevrone wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been bitching and moaning about the new g-maps for so long! And this thread makes me feel...vindicated? I guess? Too bad I'm still stuck with it. The funny thing is that it's possible the UI could have been screwed while keeping the search stable, but as the article points out, the search is killing me. It's Apple Maps-ish in a way. I mean, if I'm zoomed in to a particular level and I do a search, there's a good…

Click on the ? at the bottom right, then select Return to old Google maps lastly click on the classic yellow ribbon which appears at the top asking to remember your preference. 6 more months of classic maps then they will probably phase it out, sadly.

Is there a way to switch to classic view permanently?

Every time I start Google Maps again - it starts with crippled version.

Update: I just noticed that after switching to Classic, Google Maps is asking me if I want to remember that choice permanently.

The question is not prominent enough though.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#229

Post by thisisnotatest »

alok-g wrote: post #122
buro9 wrote: post #15

In the example given it's the word "forest" that is the problem. "Sambisa" would have found it. "Sambisa Reserve" would have found it. "Sambisa Forest Reserve" would have found it. But my guess is that something attempts to understand keywords and context and when you end with "forest" it looks within the set of forests that are called Sambisa, and actually there isn't a forest called Sambisa, there's a nature reserv…

This is exactly the problem I have. It does not search what I ask it to search, sometimes even after using Verbatim. And if no results are found, Google, please tell me "no results found" rather than giving me junk to scan to figure why did Google return me all this when it does not even have the keywords I asked for. I do not like to type a + before every keyword.

I hear you. How to indicate to the user that we don't think there are any good matches for their query is something we debate and experiment with in search quality at Google.

FYI, the + prefix operator was deprecated a few years ago. There was always an equivalent way to express it, by putting "each" "word" "in" "quotes". I know that's more keypresses than the + sign, but when maintaining a system as gigantic and complex as the Google search engine, everything is tradeoffs, and that's one that we decided to make.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#230

Post by milliams »

gyardley wrote: post #53

The Google Maps product really is lacking outside of the United States. I was down in Chile's Lake District last week, and Google totally failed me, both in Pucón and Panguipulli. These are not particularly tiny towns - in fact, Pucón is a major tourist destination. But Google was completely lacking in street information for both places. I ended up having to use Bing. Google wasn't even second - both Nokia's HERE Map…

I quite like using Geofabrik's MapCompare tool for things like this. For example, take a look at http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/#14/-39.2756/-71.9824&num=4&mt0...
Post reply on HN