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What Happened to Google Maps?

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Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#111

Post by swiley »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #52
panic wrote: post #35

I'm confused by the replies saying that more dense labels would somehow harm usability for driving or navigation. When you're driving, you know where you're going, the map knows where you're going, and it's easy to see the route you need to take. When you're not on a route, denser labels help you to orient yourself with the map and to know when to zoom into a particular location. That said, I also think the focus on…

For driving Google Maps getting quite bad. See this screenshoot: http://imgur.com/uPO8QJh This kind of crowded display is fairly common now. I use Here Maps now which is much better + I like supporting a second option to avoid one service getting 2 monopolistic. My theory of why google maps is getting worse is there must be designers dedicated to this that need to constantly look for 'new' things to add even if its t…

The worst part about Google maps while driving is that it won't read directions until your right up on the turn.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#112

Post by taneq »

panic wrote: post #35

I'm confused by the replies saying that more dense labels would somehow harm usability for driving or navigation. When you're driving, you know where you're going, the map knows where you're going, and it's easy to see the route you need to take. When you're not on a route, denser labels help you to orient yourself with the map and to know when to zoom into a particular location. That said, I also think the focus on…

To expand on your second point, I believe Google Maps is optimized for the user to be following directions. Labels are irrelevant when you've got a blue line to follow.

In their perfect world you don't orient yourself with the map. You tell the map what you want and it tells you how to get there.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#113

Post by a3_nm »

I think that OpenStreetMap has a bit more information that Google Maps at the same zoom level. To compare on New York:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5263/-73.8556

https://www.google.fr/maps/@40.5487361,-73.9399427,9z

(Edit: as the child comments correctly point out, this is only the default OSM rendering style.)

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#114

Post by maxerickson »

chris_wot wrote: post #62
orillian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A funny thing about interactive maps while driving. If I'm on my phone and I bring up a road map of the area I'm traveling and I am constantly zooming in and panning the app so that I can see locations around me then the map has failed me. Landmarks are key to any map, but landmarks that fade in and out of focus are not all that useful. I used to be excited by the prospect of being able to bring up a map of my route…

From memory, Open Street Map has layers. I'd be interested in comparing OSM to Google Maps!

OpenStreetMap itself has no notion of layers. It has a rather simple data model for geometries and completely freeform tagging (so for example there is no technical enforcement of how a road is labeled a road in the main database). Naturally there is quite a bit of effort to use tags with clear shared meanings, but none of that happens in the database, it's the people building the editors and doing the editing that choose what the tags mean.

Consumers of OSM data generally do perform a data extraction step where the freeform tags are grouped together and perhaps normalized to some extent. So at that point you sort of start to have layers, but different apps will use different systems and rules for that step, so the layers are coming from the app maker, not from OpenStreetMap itself.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#115

Post by ris »

chris_wot wrote: post #62
orillian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A funny thing about interactive maps while driving. If I'm on my phone and I bring up a road map of the area I'm traveling and I am constantly zooming in and panning the app so that I can see locations around me then the map has failed me. Landmarks are key to any map, but landmarks that fade in and out of focus are not all that useful. I used to be excited by the prospect of being able to bring up a map of my route…

From memory, Open Street Map has layers. I'd be interested in comparing OSM to Google Maps!

OpenStreetMap is just a database. It has no concept of layers (except the `layers=` tag used for stacking order of objects e.g. bridges). Products which use OpenStreetMap data are free to apply whatever "layer" abstractions in their UIs they like.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#116

Post by maxerickson »

a3_nm wrote: post #113

I think that OpenStreetMap has a bit more information that Google Maps at the same zoom level. To compare on New York: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5263/-73.8556 https://www.google.fr/maps/@40.5487361,-73.9399427,9z (Edit: as the child comments correctly point out, this is only the default OSM rendering style.)

Keep in mind that the tiles shown by default on the OpenStreetMap website are just an example rendering. Anyone can take the OpenStreetMap data and use it to render a map with different cartographic choices.

There's even several other example renderings that can be easily accessed on the website, for example

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5253/-74.2003&layers...

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#117

Post by ris »

a3_nm wrote: post #113

I think that OpenStreetMap has a bit more information that Google Maps at the same zoom level. To compare on New York: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5263/-73.8556 https://www.google.fr/maps/@40.5487361,-73.9399427,9z (Edit: as the child comments correctly point out, this is only the default OSM rendering style.)

The default rendering for OSM might do, many other renderings are available (including your own if you like).

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#118

Post by maxerickson »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72
Bud wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search is of course entirely useless, worse than useless, if you don't know in advance what you are looking for. Needless to say, search is not an adequate substitute for intelligent design and proper levels of detail on maps.

Can you explain your use case here? Normal Google search is great for finding the name of films you can't remember by typing vague descriptions of the plot. Maps has similar functionality, like "local coffeeshops" or " in ".

How do you search for "an interesting area in Woonsocket". Like say you want to go to a park and then walk past some shops.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#119

Post by adwf »

It's the speed/lag that really annoys me nowadays. If I pan across the map or zoom in, I know I'm waiting a good 5-6 seconds before the new tiles will be loaded. And that's on desktop, not mobile. It's so irritating I've just about abandoned google.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#120

Post by rdancer »

swiley wrote: post #111
Gustomaximus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For driving Google Maps getting quite bad. See this screenshoot: http://imgur.com/uPO8QJh This kind of crowded display is fairly common now. I use Here Maps now which is much better + I like supporting a second option to avoid one service getting 2 monopolistic. My theory of why google maps is getting worse is there must be designers dedicated to this that need to constantly look for 'new' things to add even if its t…

The worst part about Google maps while driving is that it won't read directions until your right up on the turn.

Or two turns ahead if you're cycling. They don't seem to take speed into account.
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