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What Happened to Google Maps?

justinobeirne.com

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Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#91

Post by antod »

ehnto wrote: post #70
mbrock wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I assume Google has a big staff of skilled people working on GIS, but I'm curious to know what kind of input they get from people trained in the art of cartographical mapmaking... My hunch is that the tech industry is bad at taking advantage of this kind of traditional trade knowledge, and the essay in question here is an indicator. As for Amazon, the Kindle e-books very often have horrific typesetting that wou…

Something that has become interesting to me recently is the amount of knowledge about maratime weather and sailing that isn't readily accessible in a some kind of neat database, app or website. You actually have to talk to people and wander through museums to find out some of it. It's an example of an industry and body of knowledge that still grows and is passed around outside of the internet. Weather patterns for a…

> Something that has become interesting to me recently is the amount of knowledge about maratime weather and sailing that isn't readily accessible in a some kind of neat database, app or website. You actually have to talk to people and wander through museums to find out some of it.

I've been online and windsurfing for decades and I've watched online info about weather/wave conditions at various locations grow then peak, and now it's been declining and drying up in recent years.

It used to be curated and published on websites and talked about in public discussion forums. Even usenet and mailing list archives dating back to the early 90s would appear in searches. In the last 5 yrs or so it's all been slowly evaporating into ephemeral Facebook group posts hidden behind a login form.

I suspect this is happening to all sorts of other communities too as they drop below critical mass. I'm not thrilled about it.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#92

Post by kibwen »

shiro wrote: post #50
rcthompson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only zooming, Google Maps also has search. If you're looking for Oakland, CA, you go to the search bar and type "Oakland, CA", and it shows up on the map. No need to scan the map for the thing you're looking for, that's the computer's job!

I guess the main complaint of OP is not about finding a particular location, but to create a mental map with the area of concern. To create mental map efficiently, the map has to show large enough to cover the area of concern, yet has to show enough landmarks to associate with. It's crucial to have both information simultaneously in a single sight---if you have to do something to see one information at a time it beco…

In Google Maps, tapping on the compass icon in the upper right will toggle between north-is-up and forward-is-up views.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#93

Post by SiVal »

x0054 wrote: post #51

So I am not crazy after all! The other day I was driving in Palm Springs, and I was using Google Maps. I literally had to zoom in until the road I was on almost completely field the screen before it would show me the name of the road or the roads around it. They did something to their display algorithm where you now have to zoom almost entirely into an area to see anything about the area, very inconvenient.

It drives me crazy that I can't find half of the labels I'm looking for, and when I do, I can't increase the size of the labels enough to make them readable. Frequently I'll have to fight with the map, zoom in and out and scroll around to get it to show me the name of a street at all, but when I finally do coax it into revealing a tiny name far downroad, the font is often too small to read. If I reflexively expand the map to get a closer look, everything expands except the label I'm trying to read.

And there's no way to expand it. I do understand that they don't want it to keep expanding beyond a certain point, especially as they add more details as they zoom. But they could let it expand within some constraints, such as the name of a street within the stripe of the street, and cap the size at 3x the normal size or some such thing.

If the algorithm for letting the labels grow a bit is just too hard for them, then just give me a little slider on the side to add a fixed, default label magnification factor. I could expand it a bit to make the labels easier to read in general, expand it more (but just temporarily) to get a better look at something, or shrink it a bit in cases where the labels were harder to read due to overcrowding.

As it is, they've removed too many useful labels without expanding the ones remaining to make them easier to read and prevented me from expanding them manually. Bother.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#94

Post by runarberg »

elmerland wrote: post #8

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…

> With a paper map what you see is what you get.

That is not true. A good paper (road) map has three zoom levels. 1) A major map covering most of one side of the paper, with enough information to get you easily across the focus area of the map. 2) Often on the side a smaller, sparser macro area map, showing only the freeways and the major cities/towns, often spanning a slight larger area than the main map. 3) A few downtown/focus maps, that are far more detailed than the main map, showing more rodes (sometimes walking paths, and bike lanes, house outlines, etc.). Often on the side along with the macro level map, or on the back next to the index. And 4) a really good paper map has also a macro level public transportation map (often on the back as well) at a zoom level between (1) and (2).

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#95

Post by SeanDav »

Google really won't care about any comments here, they are all about the data. So simply stop using Google maps. Tell your family to stop using Google maps. Tell all your friends to stop using Google maps. Blog about not using Google Maps.

Find alternatives, there are several mentioned in these comments for starters.

When/if Google start seeing a reduction in their map use, only then will they start paying attention.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#97

Post by wtbob »

x0054 wrote: post #51

So I am not crazy after all! The other day I was driving in Palm Springs, and I was using Google Maps. I literally had to zoom in until the road I was on almost completely field the screen before it would show me the name of the road or the roads around it. They did something to their display algorithm where you now have to zoom almost entirely into an area to see anything about the area, very inconvenient.

Am I the only one who likes to know the road before my turn? That way I know when I need to change lanes/pay closer attention/whatever. New mapping apps really don't seem to want to share that information with me.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#98

Post by wtbob »

kibwen wrote: post #92
shiro wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the main complaint of OP is not about finding a particular location, but to create a mental map with the area of concern. To create mental map efficiently, the map has to show large enough to cover the area of concern, yet has to show enough landmarks to associate with. It's crucial to have both information simultaneously in a single sight---if you have to do something to see one information at a time it beco…

In Google Maps, tapping on the compass icon in the upper right will toggle between north-is-up and forward-is-up views.

I really wish someone would add an east-is-up mode, since that's the traditional orientation for maps — and the root of the word 'orientation' to begin with.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#99

Post by wtbob »

mbrock wrote: post #53
powera wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they haven't?

Well, I assume Google has a big staff of skilled people working on GIS, but I'm curious to know what kind of input they get from people trained in the art of cartographical mapmaking... My hunch is that the tech industry is bad at taking advantage of this kind of traditional trade knowledge, and the essay in question here is an indicator. As for Amazon, the Kindle e-books very often have horrific typesetting that wou…

> My hunch is that the tech industry is bad at taking advantage of this kind of traditional trade knowledge, and the essay in question here is an indicator.

As is the fact that other than Knuth, no-one seems to have learnt the first thing about how to lay out a page of text in an attractive fashion. And then even given Knuth, essentially no-one bothers to use his magnum opus (I honestly think that TeX is even more important the The Art of Computer Programming, and is what Knuth will be known for in two centuries).

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#100

Post by DanBC »

jrbapna wrote: post #16

While the analysis is fine, the conclusion is almost certainly false. At Google's scale, nearly any iteration made on core products is backed by an immense understanding of their end users and a near unlimited supply of user data.

> At Google's scale, nearly any iteration made on core products is backed by an immense understanding of their end users and a near unlimited supply of user data.

Which just makes the changes to maps so baffling.

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