151–160 of 201 posts
I suspect that these changes are dues to the switch from bitmap tiles to vectors.
Not applicable at the zoom scale used in the article, but on higher zoom levels this is certainly a factor.
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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.
If you don't actually know what you're even looking for, NO MAP whatsoever will be able to help you-- perhaps just take a walk? Of course, you DO have SOME idea of what you're looking for and that's where Google maps can help infinitely better than any paper map.
I use OpenStreetMap for this use case so I can only answer for them, and they seem to do a great job at it. If I am looking for the general shopping area, or office areas, or anything like that, I can zoom and pan through a city and find it very quickly. That Google doesn't show labels anymore makes it completely useless (and I've run into that a few times).
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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!
I'm surprised the author didn't mention the main difference between paper maps and google maps. That is, google maps is interactive. With a paper map what you see is what you get. You had to cram as much information as it would allow. But this is not the case with google maps. You can zoom in, out, and anywhere in between. You can't compare the two based on the level of information displayed at one fixed zoom level b…
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…
What's the actual problem you're trying to solve when you do that?
Satellite imagery for close zoom levels aren't loaded for Turkey! https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/maps/Ixm4C6...
Google’s products are shit outside of the US, more at 11
It’s nothing new, it’s been like this for quite a while.
"Less is just less. And that's certainly the case here." Not sure I agree, in my opinion most of us use search & destinations nowadays, even in offline mode. The only reason I look at a map is to gauge distance between me and my destination.
I certainly do
And for this use case Google maps is getting pretty useless
"Less is just less. And that's certainly the case here." Not sure I agree, in my opinion most of us use search & destinations nowadays, even in offline mode. The only reason I look at a map is to gauge distance between me and my destination.
Almost no one I know uses directions – all look at the map, see "3 intersections north, then right, then the 2nd on the left" and drive/bike/walk like that. I certainly do And for this use case Google maps is getting pretty useless
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Maybe they are taking notes from Waze. Waze by default is so crowded your entire map is just icons of random stuff you don't care about. Then every once in a while half your screen is filled by an add that you need to dismiss, while driving, to see where you are going.
That could cause accidents! I hope they're at least relevant ads for auto and life insurance, tow trucks, chiropractors, tombstones, etc.