Google Maps Has Forsaken Us(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Google Maps Has Forsaken Us
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/10/google-maps-has-forsaken-us/
231 comments
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 a usable UI. It isn't perfect, and maybe even looks "dated" in some ways, but it generally works and is understood by its existing users.
So-called "hipsters" (that is, people who have an uncompromising view that they're talented "designers" or "UI experts", with a massive ego to back this up, and a fixation on being "trendy") get involved at some point. These people are often relatively young, often have limited experience, and are usually more focused on making designs look "pretty" and "modern" rather than usable.
Needing to create work for themselves, these hipsters, coupled with managers who need to appear to be leading something seen as "productive", start on a UI redesign. Often this is done without the involvement or insight offered by the existing developers of the product, nor any of the product's users. Changes are made purely to look "better", with limited to no consideration of how it'll impact the usability of the product.
The end result is a total cock-up like this, or like the poor UI of Chrome (and the imitations of it by Firefox, Opera and IE), or a project-killing release like GNOME 3, or an abysmal failure like Windows 8.
UIs were generally far more usable in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, before "hipsters" got involved with design. What we see today is a total jumble of inconsistent and incoherent UI design, where usability and efficiency are considered significantly less important than "looking trendy".
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 a usable UI. It isn't perfect, and maybe even looks "dated" in some ways, but it generally works and is understood by its existing users.
So-called "hipsters" (that is, people who have an uncompromising view that they're talented "designers" or "UI experts", with a massive ego to back this up, and a fixation on being "trendy") get involved at some point. These people are often relatively young, often have limited experience, and are usually more focused on making designs look "pretty" and "modern" rather than usable.
Needing to create work for themselves, these hipsters, coupled with managers who need to appear to be leading something seen as "productive", start on a UI redesign. Often this is done without the involvement or insight offered by the existing developers of the product, nor any of the product's users. Changes are made purely to look "better", with limited to no consideration of how it'll impact the usability of the product.
The end result is a total cock-up like this, or like the poor UI of Chrome (and the imitations of it by Firefox, Opera and IE), or a project-killing release like GNOME 3, or an abysmal failure like Windows 8.
UIs were generally far more usable in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, before "hipsters" got involved with design. What we see today is a total jumble of inconsistent and incoherent UI design, where usability and efficiency are considered significantly less important than "looking trendy".
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 product management director for the new Google Maps.
If I had to come up with a reason why the new Google Maps feels worse in many ways, my guess would be second-system syndrome.
If I had to come up with a reason why the new Google Maps feels worse in many ways, my guess would be second-system syndrome.
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
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.Yeah I hear ya. Whoever guided this Titanic into the iceberg...well he ain't no Steve Jobs. That's for sure.
It's hard to overstate how just plain awful Google Maps is now. It's amazing, in a way. I literally cannot understand how so many smart people can, all together, fail to observe the obvious. Manifestly obviously just shit awful. To observe this one only needs a few seconds with Google Maps. A few minutes cements it. Yet here we are...
It's hard to overstate how just plain awful Google Maps is now. It's amazing, in a way. I literally cannot understand how so many smart people can, all together, fail to observe the obvious. Manifestly obviously just shit awful. To observe this one only needs a few seconds with Google Maps. A few minutes cements it. Yet here we are...
> I literally cannot understand how so many smart people can, all together, fail to observe the obvious.
It doesn't matter how many smart engineers and ux designers can see the obvious, if one person from upper management can't :( (See also: G+ real names policy)
It doesn't matter how many smart engineers and ux designers can see the obvious, if one person from upper management can't :( (See also: G+ real names policy)
My guess is the original person leading the Google Maps project was very, very competent, and they either moved to another project or quit - and got replaced by someone really awful. I think it happened at some point pre-2013, because Maps was great until then, and has been in decline ever since.
Yeah, I experienced a similar timeline. That's when the Maps API stopped working for the Java app on my feature phone, roughly. Then the cascade or rot hit the PC / tablet experience, piece by piece, until it was just completely terrible. Which brings us to today. =)
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 bet that I'm only interested in results within those bounds, right? I'm not crazy to want that am I?
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 bet that I'm only interested in results within those bounds, right? I'm not crazy to want that am I?
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.
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.
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.
They do this with every service/option they don't want you to use.
For example, if you enable delay e-mail send in gMail, you get a tiny pop-up to undo your message... I guess you just have to learn to always look at the top middle for Google's hidden/minimally displayed functions.
For example, if you enable delay e-mail send in gMail, you get a tiny pop-up to undo your message... I guess you just have to learn to always look at the top middle for Google's hidden/minimally displayed functions.
THANK YOUUU!!!
As crazy as it sounds, I did some back-and-forth tests to find things nearby and I got the same or more relavent results from Apple Maps. I switched over and the service has gotten a lot better from where they were at launch. Google Maps has gotten significantly worse.
I literally cannot understand how so many smart people can, all together, fail to observe the obvious.
That one's easy. It turns out that roles like management and marketing and customer support are actually important for developing good products, but the culture at "engineer"-led organisations doesn't always acknowledge or respect that.
That one's easy. It turns out that roles like management and marketing and customer support are actually important for developing good products, but the culture at "engineer"-led organisations doesn't always acknowledge or respect that.
The product is becoming the Windows ME of Google.
Pegman sealed the deal.
At least they listened to the outcry and brought them back!
I agree with your argument, but there's no need to go in with the "hipsters" or "looking trendy" thing. I immediately get turned off when someone uses "hipster" pejoratively. You might as well have just used "millenials" or "kids these day." It ruins a perfectly cogent argument.
Like I said in an earlier comment, age has very little to do with this. "Hipsters" can pretty much be any age.
It's more the "hipster" mindset and attitude that's the problem. This attitude involves fashion and trends trumping all other considerations. Maybe that's okay when it comes to something like clothing. It isn't acceptable, however, when it comes to tools that are supposed to be productive, including software.
If you've got a better term than "hipster", I'm willing to consider using it. I'm just not aware of any other term that better describes the particular attitude that puts vanity, arrogance, ego, smugness and focus on appearance over everything else.
It's more the "hipster" mindset and attitude that's the problem. This attitude involves fashion and trends trumping all other considerations. Maybe that's okay when it comes to something like clothing. It isn't acceptable, however, when it comes to tools that are supposed to be productive, including software.
If you've got a better term than "hipster", I'm willing to consider using it. I'm just not aware of any other term that better describes the particular attitude that puts vanity, arrogance, ego, smugness and focus on appearance over everything else.
How about instead of using a crappy word that attempts to tar a nebulous ill-defined group of people, you just point out the issues you have with it. No need for the "hipster" straw-man, as far as I'm concerned, and I agree with your points. "Hipster" is over-done, and from where I'm sitting those who use it pejoratively come across as elitist.
Like I said in the comment you replied to, if you have a better term, please mention it here.
I don't think that these people, or more specifically their attitude and their approach toward software UI design, are "nebulous" nor "ill-defined". It's extremely easy to identify incidents involving them: Windows 8, GNOME 3, Firefox 4 and later, this new version of Google Maps, and the Slashdot beta website, among others.
There are some common traits we see with these cases:
1. They hijack an existing, well-established software product.
2. They throw out years, if not decades, of accumulated knowledge and experience.
3. They usually come in with little to no relevant experience themselves.
4. They consider appearance far more important than usability, efficiency or productivity.
5. They create a design that's obviously flawed in many different ways.
6. They refuse to accept or even acknowledge these many flaws in their designs, no matter how loudly long-time users point them out.
7. They release their changes into the wild, often forcing them upon users who absolutely abhor the changes.
8. Their design efforts drive away more users than they could ever hope to bring in.
The fourth and sixth points are the key ones here. They are the very essence of the "hipster" attitude, regardless of whether we're talking about clothing, food, software UI design, or pretty much anything else they're involved with.
I don't think that these people, or more specifically their attitude and their approach toward software UI design, are "nebulous" nor "ill-defined". It's extremely easy to identify incidents involving them: Windows 8, GNOME 3, Firefox 4 and later, this new version of Google Maps, and the Slashdot beta website, among others.
There are some common traits we see with these cases:
1. They hijack an existing, well-established software product.
2. They throw out years, if not decades, of accumulated knowledge and experience.
3. They usually come in with little to no relevant experience themselves.
4. They consider appearance far more important than usability, efficiency or productivity.
5. They create a design that's obviously flawed in many different ways.
6. They refuse to accept or even acknowledge these many flaws in their designs, no matter how loudly long-time users point them out.
7. They release their changes into the wild, often forcing them upon users who absolutely abhor the changes.
8. Their design efforts drive away more users than they could ever hope to bring in.
The fourth and sixth points are the key ones here. They are the very essence of the "hipster" attitude, regardless of whether we're talking about clothing, food, software UI design, or pretty much anything else they're involved with.
> This attitude involves fashion and trends trumping all other considerations.
90% of the complaints I see about things being bad now because of "fashion and trends trumping all other considerations" seem to just be people applying who are themselves putting fashions and trends above all other considerations -- its just that they found a fashion or trend that they favored several years ago and are upset that the rest of the world doesn't still favor that fashion/trend.
And that's not entirely unreasonable -- or necessarily detached from personal productivity. Something that is a common trend in a field where productivity is relevant is almost certainly also useful to some subset of the market. Likewise, compatibility with expectations driven by trends external to the field can make new fashions also more productive to the mass market, even if they aren't more productive to the subset that the prior fashion "clicked" with well on a deeper level.
90% of the complaints I see about things being bad now because of "fashion and trends trumping all other considerations" seem to just be people applying who are themselves putting fashions and trends above all other considerations -- its just that they found a fashion or trend that they favored several years ago and are upset that the rest of the world doesn't still favor that fashion/trend.
And that's not entirely unreasonable -- or necessarily detached from personal productivity. Something that is a common trend in a field where productivity is relevant is almost certainly also useful to some subset of the market. Likewise, compatibility with expectations driven by trends external to the field can make new fashions also more productive to the mass market, even if they aren't more productive to the subset that the prior fashion "clicked" with well on a deeper level.
In this case, I think that I would define "hipster" as "thinks they are the second coming of Steve Jobs." They're basically cargo culting, they saw Steve Jobs stir shit up, so they think that if they stir shit up as well, the world will hail them as geniuses and shower them with riches. The problem is that they give little thought to exactly what they are stirring up, or how they are doing it. Inevitably they just make a hash of everything.
That and they're positively obsessed with JavaScript, Node.js, and a coding style that favors ample and unnecessary usage of anonymous JavaScript functions as nested parameters.
I was with you until you started to hate on Chrome GUI. In my opinion, Chrome's GUI is the best thing that could happen to browsers.
It depends on who you are, and how you use the browser. Maybe the Chrome UI is good for somebody with a tiny screen and a near-complete lack of technical ability.
But for people with large monitors and the need to push a web browser hard, they've merely managed to strip out or hide a lot of very useful functionality, with essentially no benefit. What's left over is non-standard and awkward to use (like Chrome's menu).
But for people with large monitors and the need to push a web browser hard, they've merely managed to strip out or hide a lot of very useful functionality, with essentially no benefit. What's left over is non-standard and awkward to use (like Chrome's menu).
I have a large monitor, but I have no idea what you mean by "push a web browser hard". Chrome's UI is great because it recognizes that what is important in a browser UI is the content area, not the, well ... chrome. I have no concept of what you could possibly be doing with the menu so often that it bugs you.
A little more on topic: one person's "crappy hipster redesign" is another person's "wow this is so much better" and it's really difficult to guess ahead of time which will be the dominant reaction. Having said that, most of the frustrations about Maps here seem to be more on the implementation side than the design side.
A little more on topic: one person's "crappy hipster redesign" is another person's "wow this is so much better" and it's really difficult to guess ahead of time which will be the dominant reaction. Having said that, most of the frustrations about Maps here seem to be more on the implementation side than the design side.
My issue with Chrome's UI is that it is inflexible. I agree that the content area is important; as such, my firefox displays much more content (while also displaying more useful icons IMO).
In Chrome, you take what Google gives you and you better like it. I'll admit, it's not a bad default.
Firefox, however, allows addons to fundamentally alter the appearance of the webbrowser. I can add stylish themes that do all sorts of awesome things. I can use vimperator with "set gui=nonavigation" and reclaim even more space for content.
This fundamental difference is the reason I think Chrome's UI is bad. Firefox, you can customize the gui to be good for any definition of good. Chrome's only works if your definition of good aligns with Google's.
Also, for an example of when Chrome's UI fails, simply try and half-screen it on a 1080p screen with 30+ tabs open. All the tab favicons vanish. There's no way to search for an existing open tab (akin to firefox's % Location Bar Search character[0]).
If you'd like, I could show you my firefox and chrome running side by side with firefox having dozen's of more pixels of content-viewing area. Even if you don't like my setup, the fact that I can change it at all makes it an obvious win for me.
[0]: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_search#Location_Bar_s...
In Chrome, you take what Google gives you and you better like it. I'll admit, it's not a bad default.
Firefox, however, allows addons to fundamentally alter the appearance of the webbrowser. I can add stylish themes that do all sorts of awesome things. I can use vimperator with "set gui=nonavigation" and reclaim even more space for content.
This fundamental difference is the reason I think Chrome's UI is bad. Firefox, you can customize the gui to be good for any definition of good. Chrome's only works if your definition of good aligns with Google's.
Also, for an example of when Chrome's UI fails, simply try and half-screen it on a 1080p screen with 30+ tabs open. All the tab favicons vanish. There's no way to search for an existing open tab (akin to firefox's % Location Bar Search character[0]).
If you'd like, I could show you my firefox and chrome running side by side with firefox having dozen's of more pixels of content-viewing area. Even if you don't like my setup, the fact that I can change it at all makes it an obvious win for me.
[0]: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_search#Location_Bar_s...
Chrome's UI is great because it recognizes that what is important in a browser UI is the content area, not the, well ... chrome.
Sure it is, as long as you only want to look at one page above the fold.
But sometimes I want to navigate between pages, and at that point I do want my bookmarks bar displayed.
Sometimes I want to scroll a page, and at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup instead of some almost invisible, almost unclickable little rectangle at the edge of the window.
Sometimes I want to use developer tools, and that that point I do want concepts like whitespace and fonts larger than 5px and coloured icons that are easily recognisable to exist, instead of prioritising cramming so much information into the available space that all of it becomes almost illegible.
Sure it is, as long as you only want to look at one page above the fold.
But sometimes I want to navigate between pages, and at that point I do want my bookmarks bar displayed.
Sometimes I want to scroll a page, and at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup instead of some almost invisible, almost unclickable little rectangle at the edge of the window.
Sometimes I want to use developer tools, and that that point I do want concepts like whitespace and fonts larger than 5px and coloured icons that are easily recognisable to exist, instead of prioritising cramming so much information into the available space that all of it becomes almost illegible.
> But sometimes I want to navigate between pages, and at that point I do want my bookmarks bar displayed.
'Always show bookmark bar' is the top item on my View menu. Is it there for you?
> at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup
I can't comment on this I've not used a scroll bar since I got trackpad scrolling. Just compared Chrome with Safari and the scrollbars seem identical to me.
> Sometimes I want to use developer tool
I'm not clear what your complaint is here. Dev tools is too crowded? I often need it to share space with content whilst I'm debugging. If you have dual monitors then I can understand you might prefer a less compact display. I work entirely on my laptop so I'm grateful for it's compactness.
'Always show bookmark bar' is the top item on my View menu. Is it there for you?
> at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup
I can't comment on this I've not used a scroll bar since I got trackpad scrolling. Just compared Chrome with Safari and the scrollbars seem identical to me.
> Sometimes I want to use developer tool
I'm not clear what your complaint is here. Dev tools is too crowded? I often need it to share space with content whilst I'm debugging. If you have dual monitors then I can understand you might prefer a less compact display. I work entirely on my laptop so I'm grateful for it's compactness.
'Always show bookmark bar' is the top item on my View menu.
Sure, you can change the default easily enough. I'm just giving an example where I do find it useful to have more Chrome displayed at the expense of a small amount of content area.
I can't comment on this I've not used a scroll bar since I got trackpad scrolling.
I'm usually working on a desktop PC, so I don't have a trackpad. I use a mouse scroll wheel all the time, but for long documents that's tedious (as is using a trackpad) and with most mice it's a one-dimensional scroll anyway.
I'm not clear what your complaint is here. Dev tools is too crowded?
Yes, and many things in it are far too small for comfortable use. The developer tools in both Chrome and Firefox are riddled with basic usability and design blunders, such as using tiny fonts and icons; using a flat design that blurs everything together and often gives no clues to what interactions are available; offering many different sets of tabs, icons and other controls; numerous inconsistencies in presentation, not just in the different behaviours from tab to tab but even from one set of tabs or icons to another that is visible at the same time; and forever moving things around, particularly making unnecessary minor changes every few weeks.
I've nothing against providing for developers who are using smaller screens, but I have a powerful computer on a real desk with nice big screens to make me as productive as possible, and the idea that everything must be crammed in to maximise the content area at all costs just isn't helpful in that context. Rather like the perversion of the original "mobile first" design idea to become "over-simplified least common denominator behaviour is good enough", it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and actually making the software worse for some users. Of course the developers of these browsers are perfectly entitled to do that, but it's equally fair to point out the problems they are creating.
Sure, you can change the default easily enough. I'm just giving an example where I do find it useful to have more Chrome displayed at the expense of a small amount of content area.
I can't comment on this I've not used a scroll bar since I got trackpad scrolling.
I'm usually working on a desktop PC, so I don't have a trackpad. I use a mouse scroll wheel all the time, but for long documents that's tedious (as is using a trackpad) and with most mice it's a one-dimensional scroll anyway.
I'm not clear what your complaint is here. Dev tools is too crowded?
Yes, and many things in it are far too small for comfortable use. The developer tools in both Chrome and Firefox are riddled with basic usability and design blunders, such as using tiny fonts and icons; using a flat design that blurs everything together and often gives no clues to what interactions are available; offering many different sets of tabs, icons and other controls; numerous inconsistencies in presentation, not just in the different behaviours from tab to tab but even from one set of tabs or icons to another that is visible at the same time; and forever moving things around, particularly making unnecessary minor changes every few weeks.
I've nothing against providing for developers who are using smaller screens, but I have a powerful computer on a real desk with nice big screens to make me as productive as possible, and the idea that everything must be crammed in to maximise the content area at all costs just isn't helpful in that context. Rather like the perversion of the original "mobile first" design idea to become "over-simplified least common denominator behaviour is good enough", it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and actually making the software worse for some users. Of course the developers of these browsers are perfectly entitled to do that, but it's equally fair to point out the problems they are creating.
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> But sometimes I want to navigate between pages, and at that point I do want my bookmarks bar displayed.
Ctrl+Shift+B.
> Sometimes I want to scroll a page, and at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup instead of some almost invisible, almost unclickable little rectangle at the edge of the window.
Seems to use normal system scrollbars for me on KDE. Windows looks custom, but only wrt textures, sizes still seem to match.
Ctrl+Shift+B.
> Sometimes I want to scroll a page, and at that point I do want scrollbars that work the way my system is setup instead of some almost invisible, almost unclickable little rectangle at the edge of the window.
Seems to use normal system scrollbars for me on KDE. Windows looks custom, but only wrt textures, sizes still seem to match.
Ctrl+Shift+B.
Sure, or it's an option on the menu. I'm just trying to show that sometimes removing all possible chrome to maximise the content area isn't necessarily the most helpful thing to do.
Seems to use normal system scrollbars for me on KDE.
On Windows, they are just thin grey rectangles that don't even look like scrollbars (or anything else you might interact with) and don't even look the same between the main content window and supporting windows like the developer tools.
Sure, or it's an option on the menu. I'm just trying to show that sometimes removing all possible chrome to maximise the content area isn't necessarily the most helpful thing to do.
Seems to use normal system scrollbars for me on KDE.
On Windows, they are just thin grey rectangles that don't even look like scrollbars (or anything else you might interact with) and don't even look the same between the main content window and supporting windows like the developer tools.
Completely agree. Hide as much as possible that isn't annoying on a regular basis then learn the keyboard shortcuts for everything else if you're such a power user.
I use chromium with a 5760*1080 resolution, and I frequently have > 150 tabs open across 3 browser windows, and I really have no complaints. I also occasionally peruse or develop WebGL/ASM.js/emscripten applications, so I suppose I fit into your description as someone who is "pushing the web browser hard".
All functionality I need to access quickly is accessible through shortcuts, so I don't typically need to access the "hamburger-menu" very often. The only thing I really use it for is to open the settings tab.
All functionality I need to access quickly is accessible through shortcuts, so I don't typically need to access the "hamburger-menu" very often. The only thing I really use it for is to open the settings tab.
I disagree.
I mostly use web browser for browsing. Not for staying in this on that setup menu, not for looking at tabs and windows.
Chrome managed to move the bloat away and move the important thing to front.
I don't really see the parallel with the new Google Maps.
I mostly use web browser for browsing. Not for staying in this on that setup menu, not for looking at tabs and windows.
Chrome managed to move the bloat away and move the important thing to front.
I don't really see the parallel with the new Google Maps.
> somebody with a tiny screen and a near-complete lack of technical ability
The vast majority of users.
The vast majority of users.
And that continuous pandering to them is what will bring the downfall of the information age. We are dumbing down our technology, where we should be forcing people to get smarter instead. But unfortunately, dumber is always easier to sell. I fear that, as the world depends more and more on technology (and people actually thinking straight), this feedback loop of progressing idiocy might one day undo us.
> And that continuous pandering to them is what will bring the downfall of the information age. We are dumbing down our technology, where we should be forcing people to get smarter instead.
Changing humanity on the kind of broad scale that requires is a much broader and longer term project than any commercial entity could survive in the short term if its commercial success relied on it.
Its certainly the kind of thing I can see Google being interested in, but not the kind of thing they would be around long enough to do if they didn't have a business strategy that did better at reaching the masses of people that actually exist now as they are than that could ever do.
Changing humanity on the kind of broad scale that requires is a much broader and longer term project than any commercial entity could survive in the short term if its commercial success relied on it.
Its certainly the kind of thing I can see Google being interested in, but not the kind of thing they would be around long enough to do if they didn't have a business strategy that did better at reaching the masses of people that actually exist now as they are than that could ever do.
That does not make sense. Newspapers are a primitive medium, that does not offer a lot of customization, yet in many ways they are superior in content to news websites. In any case it does not really matter how "dumb" the presentation of content is, if the content itself isn't "dumb".
It was until it starting generating errors on the backend when they break compatibility with auto updates. Or the fact that it doesn't render Java correctly in some cases. Or the fact that it auto places the cursor in certain places for you despite you attempting to click in a specific textbox. Or the fact that it no longer allows you to set the target page of new tabs.
I was once in love with Chrome, but over the past few months I've started looking back at FireFox.
I was once in love with Chrome, but over the past few months I've started looking back at FireFox.
Chrome GUI is great ... if you never used Opera.
Can't help but think is is an engineers mindset here (remember forms UIs with 50 gray buttons?). UIs were usable but not appealing. Older linux window managers. Designers making things look appealing brings computing to more people (not just pros) than otherwise.
Except... what they had was appealing enough to people to use. It's unappealing enough now that people don't want to use it (even jumping to bing). Many people will continue to use it because of system defaults and such, but many will look for more usable alternatives.
Usability is 'appealing' just as much as visual button styling, maybe moreso.
Usability is 'appealing' just as much as visual button styling, maybe moreso.
Appealing is good. Usable is more important. Appealing and usable is great. Appealing but baffling and broken is stupid.
Most people do not want nor need fancy weird functionality.
They just want the maps, or maybe the directions.
Most people do not want nor need fancy weird functionality.
They just want the maps, or maybe the directions.
" Older linux window managers"
You remember that horrible WM everybody seemed to be running 10-15 years ago, 'enlightenment'? Completely unusable but it looked cool with all the shapes and transparencies and etc.
You remember that horrible WM everybody seemed to be running 10-15 years ago, 'enlightenment'? Completely unusable but it looked cool with all the shapes and transparencies and etc.
+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?
I think you're right about trendiness and hubris associated with UI redesigns, but I think it might be a mistake to imagine this is some sort of one-time sea-change.
I think it's more of a constant churn; those who would "modernize" or "update" all sorts of designs - from software UI to software architecture to real architecture to interior decorating to graphic design and brand identity work - always have (arguably need to have) an unjustified level of self-confidence, a high opinion of their ability relative to the task they've got before them. They're always blind to the tweaking and tuning that was required to produce the thing they've set out to replace.
Most of the time, if they had an accurate idea of how monumental a task they were facing, they'd look for something else to do.
I think it's more of a constant churn; those who would "modernize" or "update" all sorts of designs - from software UI to software architecture to real architecture to interior decorating to graphic design and brand identity work - always have (arguably need to have) an unjustified level of self-confidence, a high opinion of their ability relative to the task they've got before them. They're always blind to the tweaking and tuning that was required to produce the thing they've set out to replace.
Most of the time, if they had an accurate idea of how monumental a task they were facing, they'd look for something else to do.
@Pacabel Absolutely true. The "design" folks are usually pressured to follow fashions. Current fashion in designs in the valley are unfortunately driven by people (ie "hipsters") with "minimal", "negative space", "beautiful" as their main values with usability, discoverability etc. being very low on the list of priorities.
Also, I can assert with some confidence, that the number of people choosing the Classic view (from the small question mark at the bottom), is being tracked as a metric of success or failure of the new UI high up on the chain of decision-making inside google.
Also, I can assert with some confidence, that the number of people choosing the Classic view (from the small question mark at the bottom), is being tracked as a metric of success or failure of the new UI high up on the chain of decision-making inside google.
I don't think it's 'hipsters' or young designers in general. I think situations like this happen when a bunch of people sit down in a room, and draw something up on a whiteboard. They draw all kinds of flow charts, sales funnels, color emotions, menu mockups, how X study showed 3% more users preferred the search bar 10px from the top, instead of 7px from the top, and how renaming the button from Search, to Go with a silly icon makes the company more human and will improve their image.
They get caught up in all these little details and studies, and on paper they can rationalize everything as being perfect. Then, it's a turd in reality, and everyone is left wondering what went wrong, the studies showed B was greater than A, and C was even better than B, and D surpassed C. So, how in the world can the original A be better than D? I don't know, but anyone in the design or development world can verify that it happens.
The Simpsons sum it up well in this episode...
http://i.imgur.com/VLgpw4L.jpg
The car is perfect, big windows and lots of sunlight, a giant cupholder, a horn that plays a catchy tune. Everything is great, until you look at things as a whole.
Now, my least favorite aspects of the new Google maps. I use it on almost a daily basis because I travel often, but I'll be trying to experiment with OpenStreetMaps, or Bing.
1. The search input box hides itself. Why in the world is the search hidden, forcing me to X out of directions to see it again?
2. The blue lines for directions make it nearly impossible to tell if the road offers street view. Mousing down on the little man produces blue availability lines, but you can't see them under the directions.
3. I don't believe it's possible to split directions and street view on the screen. This was the view I used most often. Splitting them side by side would make the most sense with widescreen monitors. Now, you just get a little map in the lower left, and it does a weird expanding animation when you hover over. Previously you could drag the little man to pan around the map, but now you have to keep clicking locations to move.
4. Images at the bottom. I'm here for maps, not images, so this makes absolutely no sense. The three little images at the bottom look like buttons for terrain, map, satellite view, bit instead they open these thumbnails. Now, you have to click the earth button to get satellite images, and the weird part, the image thumbnails at the bottom have separate visible/hidden settings depending on the view. If you close the thumbnail bar when viewing a map, then switch to satellite view, you would think it would stay closed. Nope, it'll open itself, because it's enabled on satellite view. You have to toggle it off on each view.
5. The top left dropdown. Way too many boxes expanding, collapsing, etc as I try to navigate.
My wishlist...
I'm just going to mention one thing, because this has bothered me for ages. Why the heck can't I customize the level of detail? There have been countless times where I just want to see countries and their names, or countries and capital cities. I'm looking at Europe right now, and it's not displaying half of the countries, but displaying city names all over the place. If I zoom in to see all the country names, the map is crowded with hundreds of cities and roads. I always end up doing an image search online for maps, because they achieve this most basic goal. Look at the below image. Google maps on the left. It still doesn't label the Czech Republic in that image. If I zoom out one level, it'll show the Czech Republic, but hide other country names, like Montenegro. Right is just a random map I pulled off an image search. The right map is 100x easier to see the borders and countries. Google maps is an absolute disaster in these situations. If I ask someone that isn't familiar with European geography to find the Czech Republic in the below images, they'll be scratching their heads with Google maps, unless they start zooming in and out hoping the name of the desired country pops into view.
http://i.imgur.com/skpNOyd.jpg
You can show me street view from a coral reef, or roads in some obscure village on a small island, but you can't show me a simple world map with country names? Where are the priorities here?
Edit: Switched my homepage to DuckDuckGo instead of Google search, and updated by bookmarks to OpenStreetMap. I'm honestly getting tired of supporting Google, since the list of things they do right gets smaller on a weekly basis. It's time I give someone else a turn.
They get caught up in all these little details and studies, and on paper they can rationalize everything as being perfect. Then, it's a turd in reality, and everyone is left wondering what went wrong, the studies showed B was greater than A, and C was even better than B, and D surpassed C. So, how in the world can the original A be better than D? I don't know, but anyone in the design or development world can verify that it happens.
The Simpsons sum it up well in this episode...
http://i.imgur.com/VLgpw4L.jpg
The car is perfect, big windows and lots of sunlight, a giant cupholder, a horn that plays a catchy tune. Everything is great, until you look at things as a whole.
Now, my least favorite aspects of the new Google maps. I use it on almost a daily basis because I travel often, but I'll be trying to experiment with OpenStreetMaps, or Bing.
1. The search input box hides itself. Why in the world is the search hidden, forcing me to X out of directions to see it again?
2. The blue lines for directions make it nearly impossible to tell if the road offers street view. Mousing down on the little man produces blue availability lines, but you can't see them under the directions.
3. I don't believe it's possible to split directions and street view on the screen. This was the view I used most often. Splitting them side by side would make the most sense with widescreen monitors. Now, you just get a little map in the lower left, and it does a weird expanding animation when you hover over. Previously you could drag the little man to pan around the map, but now you have to keep clicking locations to move.
4. Images at the bottom. I'm here for maps, not images, so this makes absolutely no sense. The three little images at the bottom look like buttons for terrain, map, satellite view, bit instead they open these thumbnails. Now, you have to click the earth button to get satellite images, and the weird part, the image thumbnails at the bottom have separate visible/hidden settings depending on the view. If you close the thumbnail bar when viewing a map, then switch to satellite view, you would think it would stay closed. Nope, it'll open itself, because it's enabled on satellite view. You have to toggle it off on each view.
5. The top left dropdown. Way too many boxes expanding, collapsing, etc as I try to navigate.
My wishlist...
I'm just going to mention one thing, because this has bothered me for ages. Why the heck can't I customize the level of detail? There have been countless times where I just want to see countries and their names, or countries and capital cities. I'm looking at Europe right now, and it's not displaying half of the countries, but displaying city names all over the place. If I zoom in to see all the country names, the map is crowded with hundreds of cities and roads. I always end up doing an image search online for maps, because they achieve this most basic goal. Look at the below image. Google maps on the left. It still doesn't label the Czech Republic in that image. If I zoom out one level, it'll show the Czech Republic, but hide other country names, like Montenegro. Right is just a random map I pulled off an image search. The right map is 100x easier to see the borders and countries. Google maps is an absolute disaster in these situations. If I ask someone that isn't familiar with European geography to find the Czech Republic in the below images, they'll be scratching their heads with Google maps, unless they start zooming in and out hoping the name of the desired country pops into view.
http://i.imgur.com/skpNOyd.jpg
You can show me street view from a coral reef, or roads in some obscure village on a small island, but you can't show me a simple world map with country names? Where are the priorities here?
Edit: Switched my homepage to DuckDuckGo instead of Google search, and updated by bookmarks to OpenStreetMap. I'm honestly getting tired of supporting Google, since the list of things they do right gets smaller on a weekly basis. It's time I give someone else a turn.
So, in other words, kids these days?
No, not at all. It isn't really about age. I've dealt with "hipsters" in their 40s and 50s who've come up with very bad UI designs. Likewise, many of the managers or executives advocating for these redesigns are in their 30s, 40s or even 50s.
While it may be more of an issue with younger people due to a greater lack of experience and intuition, it's a phenomenon that's quite independent of age.
While it may be more of an issue with younger people due to a greater lack of experience and intuition, it's a phenomenon that's quite independent of age.
"Kids these days" is rarely strictly about age.
It's usually about a class of people who have helped to design the systems we have at present and who are therefore heavily invested in those systems in a variety of ways reacting negatively to a class of people attempting to help design new systems that they will one day defend due to their investment in them.
The idea that UX was better in the 1980s kind of gives you away here.
It's usually about a class of people who have helped to design the systems we have at present and who are therefore heavily invested in those systems in a variety of ways reacting negatively to a class of people attempting to help design new systems that they will one day defend due to their investment in them.
The idea that UX was better in the 1980s kind of gives you away here.
> These people are often relatively young, often have limited experience
> "hipsters" in their 40s and 50s
These statements cancel each other out, so there's no reason to state either as supposedly providing information content.
> "hipsters" in their 40s and 50s
These statements cancel each other out, so there's no reason to state either as supposedly providing information content.
Are you really suggesting that people can't have second or even third careers?
A 40-year-old who got into web design after a lengthy career in print media design, if not some totally unrelated field, is often no more experienced than a 20-year-old who got directly into web design. I know this can be true, because I've worked with both types of people in the past.
And "often" does not mean "always", obviously.
A 40-year-old who got into web design after a lengthy career in print media design, if not some totally unrelated field, is often no more experienced than a 20-year-old who got directly into web design. I know this can be true, because I've worked with both types of people in the past.
And "often" does not mean "always", obviously.
Your class action ad hominem attack is not constructive.
This comment also servers as a short history of the development of iOS 7.
Completely agree. On my workstation (6 cores + 32 GB RAM), Google Maps is unbearably slow using the Chrome browser. I can not even imagine the performance on an average computer.
My second biggest pet peeve: In old Maps, clicking on the marker will bring out a popup providing you various choices (http://imgur.com/qeLhJSd). In new Maps, clicking on the marker centers it on the screen. What the F? What's the value add in bringing the marker to center when I click it?
Just like GMail, Maps has gone from being great software to mediocre. I don't know who is making these horrible design choices at Googleplex.
My second biggest pet peeve: In old Maps, clicking on the marker will bring out a popup providing you various choices (http://imgur.com/qeLhJSd). In new Maps, clicking on the marker centers it on the screen. What the F? What's the value add in bringing the marker to center when I click it?
Just like GMail, Maps has gone from being great software to mediocre. I don't know who is making these horrible design choices at Googleplex.
Here is the thing ... the clicking on a point on the math and getting info was a great feature.
I loved it.
I am also sure that there is no way Google simply removed it. But they did.
The closest I can find is RIGHT CLICK/WHAT'S HERE.
I loved it.
I am also sure that there is no way Google simply removed it. But they did.
The closest I can find is RIGHT CLICK/WHAT'S HERE.
Clicking a location in the new maps bring up location info under the search bar. At least for me. http://i.imgur.com/j3uchwW.png
really? clicking the map on desktop maps should do the same thing as right-click->whats-here. it does for me anyway.
What is your environment? I am on Windows 7 and Chrome 34.0.1847.131 m.
Not who you were replying to, but a simple left-click for "what's here?" works for me on a Chromebook running Chrome 33.0.1750.152
Fine for me, Chrome 34.0.1847.132 on Ubuntu 14.04 with KDE.
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Google somehow manages to make UI's worse and worse as the time progresses. Gtalk was nice, was turned into unusable mess which is Hangouts. Youtube got worse with comments and annoying force feeding of real name policy. Maps got way worse after the recent upgrade for reasons you described. GMail as well made some anti-user changes (like for example being unable to log-in from different account if there is a cookie from previous login but also some choices in inbox itself).
I wonder if there is some evil UI design department within Google because they are very consistent at messing up once good and user friendly services.
Google has ruined maps on my Android. So much so that I have reverted it back to original factory version since thats the version which had the single most useful feature of the app - the ability to add what you searched for to your contacts in one press. The number of times they have changed the UI around is ridiculous. I know Im not supposed to be fiddling with my phone while Im driving but if I ever crash its probably because once again Google changed the fucking UI again and I have to figure it out whilst en route.
What's unusable about Hangouts? I think it's a better experience on both mobile and web. And Adium still works just fine with it for person-to-person IM.
It loses messages all the time. It also sometimes pastes fragments of old messages in the middle of the conversatation
Two things GTalk never got wrong which are pretty crucial for messaging service.
The UI.. it was a total mess when they introduced it (lack of statutes, difficult to see who is available etc.) but those I have to admit improved recently.
For me it's the fact that my android phone notifies me about a new chat 5-10 minutes after I finished(!) the conversation on my desktop (gmail, webclient).
It's really annoying. My phone beeps, I think: "Oh a new chat", look at the phone, "oh, it's just that thing from 10 minutes ago".
I get that the phone can't check for new messages all the time because battery and stuff but wouldn't it be possible to have timestamps for first/last message in a converstation or something so the phone could detect that if the conversation was going on for some time already on different device then it shouldn't notify about it?
I mean it doesn't sound like rocket science, are there any deep architecture problems with that ?
Yes, and it worked perfectly with Google Talk before the switch to google hangouts. And the battery was fine!
I find it a mess, personally, at least on the desktop. I have no real complaints about the mobile version.
Let me be contrarian here. I really like Google Map's redesign.
I have an iPhone 4, still running iOS 6. The Google Maps app has one of the best user experience I have on my phone, hands down. Turn-by-turn navigation works flawlessly. Traffic information is almost real-time, no doubt thanks to their acquisition of Waze. The app gets the little things right as well - like displaying alternate routes, along with a time estimation, directly on the map itself during navigation.
As for the desktop website, I really have no idea what you're talking about. Maps still feels pretty smooth - and I use a MacBook Air. I like the fact that they removed a lot of cruft so that you can see more of the, well, map.
I have an iPhone 4, still running iOS 6. The Google Maps app has one of the best user experience I have on my phone, hands down. Turn-by-turn navigation works flawlessly. Traffic information is almost real-time, no doubt thanks to their acquisition of Waze. The app gets the little things right as well - like displaying alternate routes, along with a time estimation, directly on the map itself during navigation.
As for the desktop website, I really have no idea what you're talking about. Maps still feels pretty smooth - and I use a MacBook Air. I like the fact that they removed a lot of cruft so that you can see more of the, well, map.
Ditto, I've never had issue with it, driven all around the UK directed by Google maps in navigation mode and apart from the odd postcode fail it's been incredibly reliable in getting me from A to B.
The iOS Google maps navigation is unreliable for me. Several times, it's shown me an icon indicating a left turn while the audio tells me to turn right. Plus the app doesn't really cope well with roundabouts, which in my country is a big problem!
I'm hoping that they improve maps using their acquisition of Waze, rather than abandoning that app...
I'm hoping that they improve maps using their acquisition of Waze, rather than abandoning that app...
> 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!
Even though it does more, I've noticed maps is faster on desktop for me than it used to be, and I'm not using particularly high-powered machines. But the older one has a fairly decent (if by no means current) ATI graphics card and the one with integrated Intel graphics is a fairly new laptop, so if GPU rendering is involved (WebGL or otherwise) even relative old-new performance could be very system dependent.
> Directions. Just so retarded. The accordion shit on the left. Just show me the effing directions, like you used to.
It is one more click to do that, OTOH the reason is that it provides several alternate routes (with on-map preview), to start with, plus makes the route options + multiple destination routing UIs available. Personally, I find the new UI much more useful than the old one.
> Also, just simple double-clicking to zoom. Extremely less useful than it used to be: just this one simple thing.
Is your complaint that you don't have drag to zoom any more? That's true, but then, if you are a keyboard user (which your complaint about tabbing around the directions UI suggests), you can use +/- to zoom, in addition to double-clicking.
Even though it does more, I've noticed maps is faster on desktop for me than it used to be, and I'm not using particularly high-powered machines. But the older one has a fairly decent (if by no means current) ATI graphics card and the one with integrated Intel graphics is a fairly new laptop, so if GPU rendering is involved (WebGL or otherwise) even relative old-new performance could be very system dependent.
> Directions. Just so retarded. The accordion shit on the left. Just show me the effing directions, like you used to.
It is one more click to do that, OTOH the reason is that it provides several alternate routes (with on-map preview), to start with, plus makes the route options + multiple destination routing UIs available. Personally, I find the new UI much more useful than the old one.
> Also, just simple double-clicking to zoom. Extremely less useful than it used to be: just this one simple thing.
Is your complaint that you don't have drag to zoom any more? That's true, but then, if you are a keyboard user (which your complaint about tabbing around the directions UI suggests), you can use +/- to zoom, in addition to double-clicking.
The other day I was comparing which cities had which fast food restaurants, and how many. I zoomed in to Philadelphia and searched for "Wendies" (yes, misspelled). I suddenly found myself looking at the address of an unrelated store in Trenton, NJ. I tried it again, and it worked as expected.
I don't know what they have done to the search in maps, but that sort of thing has been happening to me frequently these days with that product. It is almost never consistent, perhaps relying on the exact zoom and position, or perhaps correcting itself when correct results hit the cache.. I don't really know. It's inconsistency makes me think that I am losing my mind sometimes. What I am sure of is that something is rotten in the state of Google Maps.
I don't know what they have done to the search in maps, but that sort of thing has been happening to me frequently these days with that product. It is almost never consistent, perhaps relying on the exact zoom and position, or perhaps correcting itself when correct results hit the cache.. I don't really know. It's inconsistency makes me think that I am losing my mind sometimes. What I am sure of is that something is rotten in the state of Google Maps.
Just gonna jump to your last thing.
No, my complaint is not about drag to zoom. It's about double-click to zoom (the words I used, but I know sometimes things can be looked as maybe just an expression or sloppy language). Double-click. Literally. Click, click. Zoom. This no longer works correctly.
Much of the time, instead of zooming, well... it does something else, I honestly can't remember what. Maybe opens a little dialog about a business it thinks you clicked on or something. Anyway. Seriously bad. There is a way to have our cake and eat, too, to address the general tone of your comment (where you highlight the explanations and the intended benefits), but Google Maps, today, is NOT the way forward. It sucks.
No, my complaint is not about drag to zoom. It's about double-click to zoom (the words I used, but I know sometimes things can be looked as maybe just an expression or sloppy language). Double-click. Literally. Click, click. Zoom. This no longer works correctly.
Much of the time, instead of zooming, well... it does something else, I honestly can't remember what. Maybe opens a little dialog about a business it thinks you clicked on or something. Anyway. Seriously bad. There is a way to have our cake and eat, too, to address the general tone of your comment (where you highlight the explanations and the intended benefits), but Google Maps, today, is NOT the way forward. It sucks.
> No, my complaint is not about drag to zoom. It's about double-click to zoom (the words I used, but I know sometimes things can be looked as maybe just an expression or
It was clear you were complaining about double-click to zoom, but it was far less clear what about double-click to zoom your complaint was about. I guessed you might have been complaining that double-click to zoom was the only method, as Maps used (IIRC) to also support drag to zoom, but you have no clarified your complaint.
> This no longer works correctly.
IME, it always works correctly. Like most situations where you have both a double click and click functionality, variations in the speed of a double click sometimes result in accidentally getting the functionality of single clicking twice rather than the desired double click functionality, but that's nothing special to Google Maps.
It was clear you were complaining about double-click to zoom, but it was far less clear what about double-click to zoom your complaint was about. I guessed you might have been complaining that double-click to zoom was the only method, as Maps used (IIRC) to also support drag to zoom, but you have no clarified your complaint.
> This no longer works correctly.
IME, it always works correctly. Like most situations where you have both a double click and click functionality, variations in the speed of a double click sometimes result in accidentally getting the functionality of single clicking twice rather than the desired double click functionality, but that's nothing special to Google Maps.
Yeah. I mean. Thank you for your reply and interest. Unusual at this thread depth... But what I'm saying, very simply, is that it used to do what I want. I used to double click, in my usual manner, nothing unusual, and Google Maps did what I wanted. It zoomed in. This now doesn't happen anymore, and it sucks, because I liked it. I hope that's super clear.
My behavior has remained exactly same, this behavior used to be linked to a positive outcome, and this behavior--unchanged--no longer can be reliably linked to a positive outcome.
In the context of this complaint, it simply does not matter if there's another way (which I do know about, by the way). That's mixing concerns. Right now, it's just purely about double click.
My behavior has remained exactly same, this behavior used to be linked to a positive outcome, and this behavior--unchanged--no longer can be reliably linked to a positive outcome.
In the context of this complaint, it simply does not matter if there's another way (which I do know about, by the way). That's mixing concerns. Right now, it's just purely about double click.
Just yesterday I realized that they removed the estimate of fuel costs. Why? That doesn't make sense, it's one of the things you expect to see when you search for directions. It's backwards, but they managed to "update" a product and render it less useful.
Aren't fuel costs local enough that trying to estimate it is futile anyway?
Less is more, right? Right?!?
I could go on. How awful. What happened?
My guess? The new Maps was developed by people who use exclusively quad Xeons with 32GB of RAM and perhaps a high-end workstation graphics card.
(i.e., highly paid developers at a wealthy company)
It's not an uncommon problem. Developers work on high-end hardware whenever they can, and rightly so, but it can cause issues with targeting.
My guess? The new Maps was developed by people who use exclusively quad Xeons with 32GB of RAM and perhaps a high-end workstation graphics card.
(i.e., highly paid developers at a wealthy company)
It's not an uncommon problem. Developers work on high-end hardware whenever they can, and rightly so, but it can cause issues with targeting.
I have a four letter word B I N G. Bing maps is surprisingly good and i switched after being fed up with the disaster UI. Pulling my hair out no more !
I switched to Bing Maps a month or so ago. It's not as good as the old Google Maps -- there's less detailed information -- but at least the basic functionality works. Can't say that for the new Google Maps.
The quality of their directions has gone downhill as well. I keep getting routes that take me needlessly onto a frontage road and back to the main road; that say there's a hard right when there's a slight jog in the road; that have me take take a right and three lefts instead of just going straight and turning left, when there is an abundantly clear left-turn lane; the list goes on and on. When it first started it wasn't so great at directions, and they improved it dramatically over the next few years. Now it's back to sucking pretty badly.
Google Maps has forsaken even Android users, so switching to Android is probably not your solution, unless you also downgrade the maps app to the last 6.x release after going Android.
They did a total graphic and UX redesign of the Android app between 6.x and 7.x that made the app pretty horrible to use -- essentially they made it prettier but a LOT less useful as a gps navigation app. You now have to click like 5-7 times to do things that would require 2 or so clicks to accomplish before, which is a huge deal for a GPS app that you just want to dial in and go with, the overhead view is all fucked up now, they also introduced a ton of bugs in the initial 7.x versions -- some of them are now fixed, but it still isn't as rock solid as 6.x was, and they removed a ton of useful features.
bleh, don't get me started on the downfall of Google Maps... whatever change happened over there in their focus as of about 1.5 years ago has been an ongoing travesty, which I think is a huge problem for Android going forward since IMO Google Maps in the 6.x era was the absolute killer app for Android and what kept me not even looking at alternate phones. My next phone may very well be a Windows Phone, which is especially funny since I make a living writing Android apps.
They did a total graphic and UX redesign of the Android app between 6.x and 7.x that made the app pretty horrible to use -- essentially they made it prettier but a LOT less useful as a gps navigation app. You now have to click like 5-7 times to do things that would require 2 or so clicks to accomplish before, which is a huge deal for a GPS app that you just want to dial in and go with, the overhead view is all fucked up now, they also introduced a ton of bugs in the initial 7.x versions -- some of them are now fixed, but it still isn't as rock solid as 6.x was, and they removed a ton of useful features.
bleh, don't get me started on the downfall of Google Maps... whatever change happened over there in their focus as of about 1.5 years ago has been an ongoing travesty, which I think is a huge problem for Android going forward since IMO Google Maps in the 6.x era was the absolute killer app for Android and what kept me not even looking at alternate phones. My next phone may very well be a Windows Phone, which is especially funny since I make a living writing Android apps.
They fixed something that wasn't broken. Classic screw-up.
I don't mind new things, but the way they went about changing maps was an overhaul instead of incremental.
I even gave feedback during the trial period as they asked. Never heard anything on it.
I even gave feedback during the trial period as they asked. Never heard anything on it.
This is exactly why I started to use basic html version of Gmail on my desktop computer. It provides almost anything I need (well, that is to write emails and reply to them), it's fast and responsive (no, not that responsive, just that it actually responds to my mouse events ;).
From time to time when I need someting more than basic email stuff, I use the standard javascript interface...
Try it for yourself: http://mail.google.com?ui=html :)
From time to time when I need someting more than basic email stuff, I use the standard javascript interface...
Try it for yourself: http://mail.google.com?ui=html :)
> What happened?
Apple Maps became useful again (for us iOS users)
Apple Maps became useful again (for us iOS users)
This is a bad article. It tries to draw some kind of causality link between the new maps UI and a couple of bad search results that the author received. (And then tries to blame it on some completely random academic paper written by Googlers, which as far as I can tell doesn't even have a hint of being from a geo-context, and doesn't look particularly applicable to geocoding or local searches). Of course blaming the new UI is a real crowd-pleaser, as can be seen in the HN comments, which must be good for getting some page hits on a Saturday afternoon.
The reality is that Google Maps has always had a (frequently changing) set of searches producing bad results. Some of those failures would have been much more visible, widely publicized, and serious than a blogger not finding the closest burger joint. This article presents the past as searches always just working, which just wasn't true. As such there's no compelling evidence there of the search result quality having actually degraded over time.
The reality is that Google Maps has always had a (frequently changing) set of searches producing bad results. Some of those failures would have been much more visible, widely publicized, and serious than a blogger not finding the closest burger joint. This article presents the past as searches always just working, which just wasn't true. As such there's no compelling evidence there of the search result quality having actually degraded over time.
I tried the new maps when they first released it. Clearly the search was different in some ways because simple directions searches simple wouldn't work. Since the, obviously, they have ironed out those bugs. But in the intervening years, every time I've tried the "new" maps I've run screaming back to the "old" maps because of the terrible UX. Are the search results "worse"? Maybe not. But the same results presented in a nearly-unusable manner probably "feels" like worse results.
So they had a project with usable interface and sub optimal searching, and they decided to "fix" the UI but not the searching?
No, of course not. What kind of a comment is that anyway? You appear to be doing exactly the same kind of conflating of the UI and the backend that I was complaining about. There's a bunch of people whose job is to improve the search quality. They're largely not going to be the same people who'll work on the UI, so it's not some kind of either-or choice.
But it's a very difficult problem where it's rare that a change is uniformly beneficial, that's insanely dependent on frequently changing input data, and that users are very unforgiving about. My theory on the last point is that a map search is much more concrete than a web search. People have an intuition both about what the right answer should be, as well as an expectation that there is a right answer in the first place. But of course that's not the case, and the results are never going to be optimal. (I.e. your "sub optimal searching" bit is a bit of a truism).
I used to work on the Google maps geocoding team a long time ago. At that time amazing amounts of CPU and engineer time would be spent on verifying the quality of all algorithm and data changes, both during development and during launch. Changes that were unevaluated or were a net negative on quality would only be launched under very exceptional circumstances. Now, the evaluation would of course not be a fully deterministic process, it'd always need to be based on some kind of sampling. But on average that should still mean quality ratcheting up slowly. Maybe things have changed since then and stuff is just randomly launched with no regard to quality, but I have no particular reason to believe so. To me it seems much more likely that the anecdotes from the article don't represent any kind of trend.
But it's a very difficult problem where it's rare that a change is uniformly beneficial, that's insanely dependent on frequently changing input data, and that users are very unforgiving about. My theory on the last point is that a map search is much more concrete than a web search. People have an intuition both about what the right answer should be, as well as an expectation that there is a right answer in the first place. But of course that's not the case, and the results are never going to be optimal. (I.e. your "sub optimal searching" bit is a bit of a truism).
I used to work on the Google maps geocoding team a long time ago. At that time amazing amounts of CPU and engineer time would be spent on verifying the quality of all algorithm and data changes, both during development and during launch. Changes that were unevaluated or were a net negative on quality would only be launched under very exceptional circumstances. Now, the evaluation would of course not be a fully deterministic process, it'd always need to be based on some kind of sampling. But on average that should still mean quality ratcheting up slowly. Maybe things have changed since then and stuff is just randomly launched with no regard to quality, but I have no particular reason to believe so. To me it seems much more likely that the anecdotes from the article don't represent any kind of trend.
>At that time amazing amounts of CPU and engineer time would be spent on verifying the quality of all algorithm and data changes, both during development and during launch. Changes that were unevaluated or were a net negative on quality would only be launched under very exceptional circumstances.
Maybe they should actually try using the product instead of relying on automated algorithms to generate metrics when they evaluate changes. For example, it's quite obvious that something is going wrong with the prioritisation of name place text for the UK at the moment: http://imgur.com/kL0GHfe (for the non-UK readers, no there is not a large important city called "Town Centre", Edinburgh is far larger than Kirkcaldy, Birmingham is the second largest city in the country and not labeled at all).
I'm quite curious about how much real human testing they actually do. I've always had the impression that testing by actual humans is the antithesis of Google culture (automate everything and reduce everything to comparable numerical metrics).
Maybe they should actually try using the product instead of relying on automated algorithms to generate metrics when they evaluate changes. For example, it's quite obvious that something is going wrong with the prioritisation of name place text for the UK at the moment: http://imgur.com/kL0GHfe (for the non-UK readers, no there is not a large important city called "Town Centre", Edinburgh is far larger than Kirkcaldy, Birmingham is the second largest city in the country and not labeled at all).
I'm quite curious about how much real human testing they actually do. I've always had the impression that testing by actual humans is the antithesis of Google culture (automate everything and reduce everything to comparable numerical metrics).
It's a good thing that I didn't say anything about "automated algorithms used to generate metrics", then...
This was machine-aided human evaluation.
Search quality evaluation can't really be done without humans in the loop. If you had an algorithm that could distinguish between a good result and a bad result, you wouldn't use it to evaluate results. You'd use it to generate the results.
Search quality evaluation can't really be done without humans in the loop. If you had an algorithm that could distinguish between a good result and a bad result, you wouldn't use it to evaluate results. You'd use it to generate the results.
>Search quality evaluation can't really be done without humans in the loop.
I wasn't talking about search though. I was talking about the map rendering.
I wasn't talking about search though. I was talking about the map rendering.
The search function was far better prior to the new Google Maps, IMNSHO.
Also, I have an IP based out of Dallas, TX, and for some reason, Google Maps insists that I live in San Francisco. I have even set my default location (in Chrome, no less) and I still get San Francisco by default, forcing me to put a location in.
What the author said about locations is true. I used to be able to search for something unique to my area even if the map wasn't centered over my home town and it would find it, but now, it fails because I'm in San Francisco.
Also, I have an IP based out of Dallas, TX, and for some reason, Google Maps insists that I live in San Francisco. I have even set my default location (in Chrome, no less) and I still get San Francisco by default, forcing me to put a location in.
What the author said about locations is true. I used to be able to search for something unique to my area even if the map wasn't centered over my home town and it would find it, but now, it fails because I'm in San Francisco.
I 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.)
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.)
I agree. On the whole, maps is still awesome -- and with the google now functionality? Holy crap, I feel like Iron Man when I'm driving around and command my phone to navigate me to the closest Taco Bell.
That said, I do absolutely, 100% think the everything-is-now-done-through-the-search-box approach is remarkably horrible and unintuitive. I honestly thought that you couldn't customize directions any more. Hell, there were so many little features -- simple things like Search Nearby -- that I thought went away entirely. The UX is that terrible.
Want to customize the route your currently on? That's easy! Ok, so just close what your currently doing -- hey! Why are you looking in the settings? Why would settings be in Settings? Listen to what I'm saying! So, close out of the -- No! It's not in the Hamburger button. Settings aren't in the menu. Why would settings be in a menu? Pay attention! Exit navigation. Back out of the Directions screen, back out of the location screen. Now, see the single line search bar? Click on that -- but don't search for anything, there's a small button in the drop down. Click that! Congratulations! You've found the settings!
I just want to know how that UX meeting went. Settings!? In a menu!? No, no, no. Makes no sense from a user experience perspective.
That said, I do absolutely, 100% think the everything-is-now-done-through-the-search-box approach is remarkably horrible and unintuitive. I honestly thought that you couldn't customize directions any more. Hell, there were so many little features -- simple things like Search Nearby -- that I thought went away entirely. The UX is that terrible.
Want to customize the route your currently on? That's easy! Ok, so just close what your currently doing -- hey! Why are you looking in the settings? Why would settings be in Settings? Listen to what I'm saying! So, close out of the -- No! It's not in the Hamburger button. Settings aren't in the menu. Why would settings be in a menu? Pay attention! Exit navigation. Back out of the Directions screen, back out of the location screen. Now, see the single line search bar? Click on that -- but don't search for anything, there's a small button in the drop down. Click that! Congratulations! You've found the settings!
I just want to know how that UX meeting went. Settings!? In a menu!? No, no, no. Makes no sense from a user experience perspective.
Agreed. Maybe some parts of the world aren't so well mapped as my part (Greater Boston area), but I'd think the SF Bay area would be one of the better ones. For kicks I just tried a number of map searches and every one came back with accurate results. As they say, YMMV, but I don't think Google is trying to forsake us.
There's a new version of it now, which is an option when you go to maps.google.com. I tried it and gave up because it doesn't seem to work on Tasmanian ADSL - sits and spins, never loads, presumably because the new state government got into the state's internet infrastructure and shot one of the hamsters.
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 reserve called Sambisa, which covers an area within a forest landscape.
Yeah, that's pedantic and Google could do a better job when it attempts to contextualise like that (especially if it's topical), by just doing a second search internally for exact matches and doing a join/merge on the results.
But still... you're going to have the same problem with Open Street Map for the same reason:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
"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 reserve called Sambisa, which covers an area within a forest landscape.
Yeah, that's pedantic and Google could do a better job when it attempts to contextualise like that (especially if it's topical), by just doing a second search internally for exact matches and doing a join/merge on the results.
But still... you're going to have the same problem with Open Street Map for the same reason:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search.php?format=j...
You are comparing to Nominatim. Even a particular instance of Nominatim (the operator can feed other data sources into the index).
I don't think it does much of any contextualization. It might recognize 'forest' as a specific type of feature, but I believe it would only use that to prioritize results, not exclude them (but I haven't taken the time to figure out how to check this).
Photon is another search system that uses OSM data:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Photon
I guess Komoot uses it:
https://www.komoot.de/plan
It succeeds with "Sambisa Forest".
I don't think it does much of any contextualization. It might recognize 'forest' as a specific type of feature, but I believe it would only use that to prioritize results, not exclude them (but I haven't taken the time to figure out how to check this).
Photon is another search system that uses OSM data:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Photon
I guess Komoot uses it:
https://www.komoot.de/plan
It succeeds with "Sambisa Forest".
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.
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.
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.
or it could, I don't know, maybe search on closest matches to locations containing the words "Sambisa" and "forest" with priority to those areas containing the words in the correct order - like maybe "Sambisa Forest Reserve".
Oooh maybe they can take out a patent on that idea first...
(Sorry OP, not having a go at you - just getting incredibly frustrated with companies I used to love and respect - like Google and Amazon.)
Oooh maybe they can take out a patent on that idea first...
(Sorry OP, not having a go at you - just getting incredibly frustrated with companies I used to love and respect - like Google and Amazon.)
That sounds way too obvious for them not to have tried on a large corpus of (search string, correct result) pairs. If it actually gave better results, do you really think they wouldn't do it? I understand wanting to vent about the magic not being magical enough, but just how stupid do you think they are?
Google has a bad habit of trying to be too clever. For a very long time, searching for "yore" (an English word) on the Google Play store only gave me results for "your", without even bothering to tell me what it was doing.
Google is very concerned about giving users what it thinks they want, rather then what they actually asked for. Sometimes that's great (I love basic stemming), sometimes it fills my results with irrelevant garbage.
Google is very concerned about giving users what it thinks they want, rather then what they actually asked for. Sometimes that's great (I love basic stemming), sometimes it fills my results with irrelevant garbage.
Amazing they hadn't thought of that, or believed it caused too many false positives. You should go in for Director of Search to straighten them out.
Ironically, Apple Maps finds it.
I just tried it, watching the auto-complete. The word "Sambisa" resulted in two choices, both in Nigeria, the second one being the Forest Reserve.
"Sambisa Forest" works just fine for me... http://imgur.com/MQF5s8D
No, you've only entered "Sambisa Fo" which presumably doesn't trigger special category handling for the word "forest".
Something is, indeed, terribly terribly wrong in Google Maps algorithm land. For at least the last couple of weeks, Google Maps has been insisting that Basingstoke in England is called "Town Centre", and is one of the most important places in England. On a view of the entire country, it's displaying a label in the same font-size it uses for Southampton, Bristol and Liverpool marking Basingstoke as "Town Centre". Manchester and Birmingham aren't labelled at all. If this is the quality of mapping Google is providing for a major first-world English-speaking market - you should be grateful it even knows Nigeria exists.
Basingstoke one of the most important places in England? pull the other one
He was referring to "Town Centre".
Google Maps seems to think so.
What's happening with Google Maps is reminiscent of IE6: a beautiful product appears, light-years ahead of the competition, and free. The competition in question, being light-years behind, and non-free, promptly dies.
Then the beautiful product gets frozen in place, and its team "locked up in a dark dungeon" (Spolsky, 2004), which creates a huge opportunity for (open) alternatives.
OpenStreetMap + Leaflet is to Google Maps what Firefox was to IE6... but there is still a very long way to go.
Then the beautiful product gets frozen in place, and its team "locked up in a dark dungeon" (Spolsky, 2004), which creates a huge opportunity for (open) alternatives.
OpenStreetMap + Leaflet is to Google Maps what Firefox was to IE6... but there is still a very long way to go.
Frozen in place would have been more useful. Even just talking about the new UI, Google Maps has become a giant pain to work with.
Exactly. The problem is, Google has all these employees they need to keep busy, which translates into "upgrading" or redesigning products whether they need it or not. Products always suffer from this pattern.
It turns out that Google isn't smart enough to avoid the same mistakes made by the companies it supplanted.
It turns out that Google isn't smart enough to avoid the same mistakes made by the companies it supplanted.
In what year would you say Google Maps became frozen in time?
The worst about that Sambisa Forest thing is that the autocompletion finds it (http://imgur.com/kWgcByo) and then when you press enter, you get a not found error (http://imgur.com/GyhVSaO) !
Exactly. I don't know what they have changed but earlier, typing partial address (pressing enter) based on what you saw on auto complete used to work. In new version, you MUST use arrow key and select the auto complete item for it to work.
I receive a "Did you mean: Sambisa Forest Reserve, Nigeria" when pressing enter
For me both autocomplete and selecting it from the autocomplete find works perfectly.
My pet peeve as a Londoner; the disappearance of the transit layer when searching for a place. If you've not searched for anything, New-oogle Maps will happily show you the card that lets you activate the transit layer and superimpose the spiderweb of tube lines on to the London map. However, the second a marker gets dropped, good luck seeing that layer ever again.
I mean, even if you clickity clack through the directions>origin>transit, Google will mark up its suggested routes while still refusing to superimpose the tube lines. It's maddening! For all the sophisticated route-mapping that I'm sure Google is bringing to bear on the problem, I'd much rather just look at a map that simultaneously shows a search result marker and the tube network at the same time and figure out my own route. And heaven forbid that I might want to see a collection of results for DIY shops and figure out which one I can get to quickest with reference to the underground network -- it seems that Google would have me route-map each of them in turn, write down the results and then decide. It's so deeply counter-intuitive that I struggle to think of any possible rationalisation for the decision.
I don't suppose anyone has a bookmarklet that toggles the transit layer?
I mean, even if you clickity clack through the directions>origin>transit, Google will mark up its suggested routes while still refusing to superimpose the tube lines. It's maddening! For all the sophisticated route-mapping that I'm sure Google is bringing to bear on the problem, I'd much rather just look at a map that simultaneously shows a search result marker and the tube network at the same time and figure out my own route. And heaven forbid that I might want to see a collection of results for DIY shops and figure out which one I can get to quickest with reference to the underground network -- it seems that Google would have me route-map each of them in turn, write down the results and then decide. It's so deeply counter-intuitive that I struggle to think of any possible rationalisation for the decision.
I don't suppose anyone has a bookmarklet that toggles the transit layer?
Yeah, I have the exact same complaint. Took me 10 minutes to find out how to get the transit layer back. Then I found out it was practically unusable because as soon as you scroll across London, it disappears...
Have you tried using Citymapper? I've only used it a couple of times as I'm not a Londoner, but it's quite good (it knows to avoid the circle line!). Coincidentally, the first time was to get to #HNLondon where one of the Citymapper guys was giving a talk.
Have you tried using Citymapper? I've only used it a couple of times as I'm not a Londoner, but it's quite good (it knows to avoid the circle line!). Coincidentally, the first time was to get to #HNLondon where one of the Citymapper guys was giving a talk.
Citymapper is excellent, especially their mobile app's get-me-home feature (ideal for instant bus combos after the tube's closed). However, it's not designed for the vaguer queries -- nearby cafes, haberdasheries, etc -- at which google maps used to excel.
I will go against the grain a little and say I don't mind the new Google Maps, and it's getting better to the point where I might even say I like it more than the old Maps. They have been steadily improving it - initially the street view UI was terrible, and there wasn't even a distance scale. I think we've gotten to the point where releasing such poor stuff and calling it beta doesn't fly anymore when you consider how many people will be using it.
I've gotten used to putting in unnecessarily verbose context in searches, and I assume that's why I don't have search issues in sending me to other irrelevant parts of the world.
I guess there is a lot to complain about. But for me it's still the best map, and pretty usable.
The Google approach of changing things on you - too bad! - is obnoxious. Pushing out Chrome notifications in OS, enabling them by default, and having to find blog posts on how to disable because it's not in settings or documentation, this kinda stuff is just getting old.
I've gotten used to putting in unnecessarily verbose context in searches, and I assume that's why I don't have search issues in sending me to other irrelevant parts of the world.
I guess there is a lot to complain about. But for me it's still the best map, and pretty usable.
The Google approach of changing things on you - too bad! - is obnoxious. Pushing out Chrome notifications in OS, enabling them by default, and having to find blog posts on how to disable because it's not in settings or documentation, this kinda stuff is just getting old.
I can't say that I've had problems figuring the UI out, but I have had problems with the algorithm lately. If I had to guess I'd say it's Google often failing to factor in the location at some points, because I can rarely repeat the errors.
For example, I searched Maps for a Mexican restaurant with my phone recently. It directed me to a place in Florida (hundreds of miles away). Seriously, when there's a highly-rated place on Google Maps with the same name not 3 miles from where you've located me? When I returned home and searched, I had no such problems - it pointed straight at the place. I've had the reverse happen as well.
Is it the fact that I'm blocking so many cookies that Google is relying on? Or is there just a signal somewhere that tells Maps to override reason and relevance?
I have tried alternatives, but the top contenders - like Bing and OpenMaps - have their own very special set of problems.. I'm not sure what to use at this point.
For example, I searched Maps for a Mexican restaurant with my phone recently. It directed me to a place in Florida (hundreds of miles away). Seriously, when there's a highly-rated place on Google Maps with the same name not 3 miles from where you've located me? When I returned home and searched, I had no such problems - it pointed straight at the place. I've had the reverse happen as well.
Is it the fact that I'm blocking so many cookies that Google is relying on? Or is there just a signal somewhere that tells Maps to override reason and relevance?
I have tried alternatives, but the top contenders - like Bing and OpenMaps - have their own very special set of problems.. I'm not sure what to use at this point.
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 Maps (which powers Yahoo) and Apple's map product were better (although Apple was still pretty atrocious).
Here's a couple of links for comparison - Pucón in Google Maps (http://goo.gl/maps/rm1D9) vs Pucón in Bing Maps (http://binged.it/1gR5K55). If Bing Maps had a dedicated iOS application, I'd just switch permanently.
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 Maps (which powers Yahoo) and Apple's map product were better (although Apple was still pretty atrocious).
Here's a couple of links for comparison - Pucón in Google Maps (http://goo.gl/maps/rm1D9) vs Pucón in Bing Maps (http://binged.it/1gR5K55). If Bing Maps had a dedicated iOS application, I'd just switch permanently.
For the sake of completeness, here's the same location on OpenStreetMap. It's similar to Bing, if not even better.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=-39.277500%2C-71.9...
http://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=-39.277500%2C-71.9...
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...
That's awesome! Thanks for the link.
I so agree with you.I was in Puerto Natales, Chile and it completely failed me. Baffled.
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.
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?
Commercial backing.
I know that sounds somewhat daft but I like been a paying customer as it means I can get some support plus the documentation for mapbox is lovely as well.
I know that sounds somewhat daft but I like been a paying customer as it means I can get some support plus the documentation for mapbox is lovely as well.
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.
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
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.
Interesting that was the conclusion someone projected though.
Do you realize that what Mapbox gives you is Openstreetmap data ?
I've used Google Maps with the new UI for a long time, and it was pretty screwy. It used to be much, much slower than the old UI. These days, performance is a little better, though it's still not quite snappy.
Some parts of the new UI still suck, though. Just today, I wanted to print route directions. However, there's no print thingy anywhere in sight. You now have to click "List all steps", and only then a printer icon appears... Completely non-obvious. My wife mentioned that she had already reverted to just using Print Screen a few times because she couldn't find the stupid widget.
Some parts of the new UI still suck, though. Just today, I wanted to print route directions. However, there's no print thingy anywhere in sight. You now have to click "List all steps", and only then a printer icon appears... Completely non-obvious. My wife mentioned that she had already reverted to just using Print Screen a few times because she couldn't find the stupid widget.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Mapping is too important a thing to let one company control the experience. The debate is not about whether Google Maps is good or bad, but if its bad for you there is little choice. You can't fix it. It's not a 100% there, but get on the OpenStreetMap train, fix your local area and have fun. And enjoy all the good stuff startups are building on top of that data.
Here is an easy way to get started: http://www.openstreetmap.org/fixthemap
Here is an easy way to get started: http://www.openstreetmap.org/fixthemap
There's a simple explanation for recent GUI disasters across google applications: Google+. They decided to make a Swiss Army Knife under the banner of Google+, and needed kind of "consistency" of style. Everything is consistency ugly now, and Google+ guy is gone. Situation may improve as they starts dismantling the monstrosity.
With respect to search quality - they hired some AI astronauts, neural networks do wonders for them. The goal is to train their system to accommodate astronauts' brains. They say it openly.
100 times YES!
I've gotten this behavior for years and it drives me nuts because I can't understand how it's not fixed? I remember in 2009 I was driving down from SF to LA. I stopped in Santa Barbara. I needed my bearings and I didn't not know the address or the name of the street I was on but I did see an Albertson's supermarket about 200 feet away so I searched for Albertsons and Google gives me some place in Texas. (I think this was on a SonyW810)
I've searched for Pizza in Tokyo last December and had it give me some place in Chicago. It's so infuriating. It knows I'm in Tokyo, it's pinpointed me on the map. So in what situation would I EVER want Pizza in Texas unless I specifically asked for "Pizza, Texas"?
There's other things too. It mostly feels like maps hasn't changed in years. Sure, there's the new maps UI which many people, including me, feel like it's a change for the worse. The geek in me loves that it's slick and live and webgl but can you figure out how to get a short link to a place? Clicking "Share" just brings up a G+ form. Not what I wanted. I wanted a link I could msg to someone. Didn't have that problem with the old maps.
How about how to print? The old maps had a print button and it would format for printing. The new maps has one but I can never remember where it's buried in the UI. Picking Print from the browser directly doesn't do this.
Trying to figure out the UI that pops up and down. Here's one. Pick any marker on the map or search for something like Best Buy. The popup UI should show some details on whatever you picked or the one it picked for you. Now click "Directions". Ok, now how do you get back to the state just before you clicked "Directions"? There's no back button, clicking the X in the corner goes all the way back before you selected anything. In other words there is no back. If you clicked directions by accident well, I guess you just have to start over and type your search in again. If you clicked some dot on a detailed map, well now you've lost your place.
Even more frustrating is who can compete with them? How do you compete with free? If they're not going to do a good job then I'd love for someone else to try but the moment that someone else does try they'll finally feel some pressure to up their game and you're out of business.
And where's the ads? Maybe you don't want ads but I do. I want to see logos of places. Maybe I'm looking for McDonalds. Even if I'm not the logos serve as landmarks. You'd think it would be in their best interest to sell ads on maps since 90+% of all of Google's revenue is ads. And, if done right it would be extremely useful for users as well. It would even fit their mission statement if done well.
Sigh....
I've gotten this behavior for years and it drives me nuts because I can't understand how it's not fixed? I remember in 2009 I was driving down from SF to LA. I stopped in Santa Barbara. I needed my bearings and I didn't not know the address or the name of the street I was on but I did see an Albertson's supermarket about 200 feet away so I searched for Albertsons and Google gives me some place in Texas. (I think this was on a SonyW810)
I've searched for Pizza in Tokyo last December and had it give me some place in Chicago. It's so infuriating. It knows I'm in Tokyo, it's pinpointed me on the map. So in what situation would I EVER want Pizza in Texas unless I specifically asked for "Pizza, Texas"?
There's other things too. It mostly feels like maps hasn't changed in years. Sure, there's the new maps UI which many people, including me, feel like it's a change for the worse. The geek in me loves that it's slick and live and webgl but can you figure out how to get a short link to a place? Clicking "Share" just brings up a G+ form. Not what I wanted. I wanted a link I could msg to someone. Didn't have that problem with the old maps.
How about how to print? The old maps had a print button and it would format for printing. The new maps has one but I can never remember where it's buried in the UI. Picking Print from the browser directly doesn't do this.
Trying to figure out the UI that pops up and down. Here's one. Pick any marker on the map or search for something like Best Buy. The popup UI should show some details on whatever you picked or the one it picked for you. Now click "Directions". Ok, now how do you get back to the state just before you clicked "Directions"? There's no back button, clicking the X in the corner goes all the way back before you selected anything. In other words there is no back. If you clicked directions by accident well, I guess you just have to start over and type your search in again. If you clicked some dot on a detailed map, well now you've lost your place.
Even more frustrating is who can compete with them? How do you compete with free? If they're not going to do a good job then I'd love for someone else to try but the moment that someone else does try they'll finally feel some pressure to up their game and you're out of business.
And where's the ads? Maybe you don't want ads but I do. I want to see logos of places. Maybe I'm looking for McDonalds. Even if I'm not the logos serve as landmarks. You'd think it would be in their best interest to sell ads on maps since 90+% of all of Google's revenue is ads. And, if done right it would be extremely useful for users as well. It would even fit their mission statement if done well.
Sigh....
A lot of Google changes end up making me feel really dumb.
I have no idea how to create a link to what I'm looking at in Google Maps (app on iPhone). I don't know how many inscrutable buttons I am expected to click to discover this.
There's a bunch of stuff with email that I needed to do a websearch to get instructions.
Very very frustrating.
I have no idea how to create a link to what I'm looking at in Google Maps (app on iPhone). I don't know how many inscrutable buttons I am expected to click to discover this.
There's a bunch of stuff with email that I needed to do a websearch to get instructions.
Very very frustrating.
> I have no idea how to create a link to what I'm looking at in Google Maps (app on iPhone).
I voiced this complaint about the new desktop/browser version of google maps on here a few months ago. FWIW, apparently the permalink functionality has been removed because the address bar is now updated on the fly, so whatever is in the address bar is now always your permalink. This of course is not communicated to the user anywhere that I can see.
I don't know if this helps you on iOS or not.
I voiced this complaint about the new desktop/browser version of google maps on here a few months ago. FWIW, apparently the permalink functionality has been removed because the address bar is now updated on the fly, so whatever is in the address bar is now always your permalink. This of course is not communicated to the user anywhere that I can see.
I don't know if this helps you on iOS or not.
Also "show me street view here" gets more and more difficult to get with every UI iteration.
This is beautiful if you want to print maps:
http://www.maposmatic.org/
Yeah, the first thing I did was try to print (cause I needed to). Maybe printing is unhipster.
I 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.
You can get around this by bookmarking a location. I bookmarked my address in the old maps, and use that as my entry point to google maps. It doesn't ask me to switch to new.
I thought perhaps my way of loading Google Maps would still yield the old style - using '!m address' in DuckDuckGo - but no, sadly, its now the new dumbed-down page.
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=71064
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=71065
Keep in mind that Mapquest, Yahoo maps, Bing maps, and Nokia HERE have no record of it at all. So this is really between Google Maps and OpenStreetMap.
Keep in mind that Mapquest, Yahoo maps, Bing maps, and Nokia HERE have no record of it at all. So this is really between Google Maps and OpenStreetMap.
This blog post is way off. The issue isn't that Google Maps couldn't find Sambisa Forest, it is that it has an issue with how it handles auto complete and pressing enter without selecting the choices it brings up. It quite frankly looks like a bug. You can see for yourself here: http://i.imgur.com/vX1xqp2.gif
I disagree that the blog post is way off and I think the issue is that google can't find Sambisa Forest (it can't - as your gif demonstrates). It can find, "Sambisa Forest Reserve," which is great, but not the point of the blog.
They are saying that google's ability to take natural language requests (sambisa forest, in-n-out east bay) and come up with an answer that corresponds what you searched for has seriously degraded. Personally, that is consistent with my experience.
What is causing the problem (bug, difference in focus, etc) is also worth discussing. Why does google have so much trouble finding answers to queries that seem straightforward? Why can it suggest "Sambisa Forest Reserve" (based on "sambisa forest") and then have no idea how to find "sambia forest?" The title might be a little grandiose, but I think it's a fair question.
They are saying that google's ability to take natural language requests (sambisa forest, in-n-out east bay) and come up with an answer that corresponds what you searched for has seriously degraded. Personally, that is consistent with my experience.
What is causing the problem (bug, difference in focus, etc) is also worth discussing. Why does google have so much trouble finding answers to queries that seem straightforward? Why can it suggest "Sambisa Forest Reserve" (based on "sambisa forest") and then have no idea how to find "sambia forest?" The title might be a little grandiose, but I think it's a fair question.
Among the points already mentioned, I really hate the 'shake to report issue' feature. Stuck in traffic and frustrated, that thing comes up every time I hit a pothole. The thought that comes to mind everytime is "No Google, I don't want to report a problem, AT THIS MOMENT".
Overall bad choice of control. Much more sensical to stick that in somewhere fitting, like settings.
Overall bad choice of control. Much more sensical to stick that in somewhere fitting, like settings.
They could just put it in settings too and when you shake to show it there would be a button saying 'Don't show again on shake'.
Some other things:
* Start in San Francisco by typing San Francisco. It still manages to find that city. Do 'directions' and type in Eugene, OR, USA - my home town, which is a fairly straightforward drive north. It can't find it and gives you bad results.
* THEY KILLED TERRAIN MODE! This was a super-useful feature that I still use on my computer, but can no longer access on my mobile devices.
* Start in San Francisco by typing San Francisco. It still manages to find that city. Do 'directions' and type in Eugene, OR, USA - my home town, which is a fairly straightforward drive north. It can't find it and gives you bad results.
* THEY KILLED TERRAIN MODE! This was a super-useful feature that I still use on my computer, but can no longer access on my mobile devices.
Terrain mode is still there, you just have to type Terrain in the search bar, and it'll switch the view. Then X out of the search to return to the normal map view. Otherwise, if you click the input box, you should get a terrain button in one of the many expanding boxes.
I don't know who came up with the above concept for switching modes, but it's absolutely awful.
I don't know who came up with the above concept for switching modes, but it's absolutely awful.
In mobile, putting 'Terrain' in the search bar gets me "no results for Terrain".
The gradual disappearance of the terrain mode is ironic, given how their ads always seem to show happy young people on outdoor adventures...
Are you talking web or mobile? The web one found Eugene, OR just fine for me...
It finds it ok searching for it, but when you put it as a destination from San Francisco, in the little box, it chokes.
Works fine for me, and it has Eugene as an option after typing only the first few characters.
Here's what I get. Ends up somewhere in the Central Valley:
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=San+Francisco,+CA&daddr=E...
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=San+Francisco,+CA&daddr=E...
With the old google maps I could count on the fact that I could hope on Google maps 60 seconds before I needed to head out find the directions I needed hit print and be on my way. Or I could have some one on the phone talking to me and saying something hey I am lost I am kinda in this area of town I could pump that into google maps and give walking directions or even driving directions realtime over the phone.
The new google maps is frustrating to use. All the ways that I used to use google maps for just don't seem to work with the new maps either because they removed the feature, or moved the UI elements in such a way that they don't exist on the same page any more or its just too slow on my very fast laptop and my very fast internet.
I really hope they fix it fast, I am loosing all hope that maps will ever be usable again.
The new google maps is frustrating to use. All the ways that I used to use google maps for just don't seem to work with the new maps either because they removed the feature, or moved the UI elements in such a way that they don't exist on the same page any more or its just too slow on my very fast laptop and my very fast internet.
I really hope they fix it fast, I am loosing all hope that maps will ever be usable again.
Frankly, I would not even stop at Maps. Since a year or so Google makes so intensely use of all sort of metadata (my browsing interests in the future, the places if have visited, my contacts on G+) that the internet has become a small world for me. I find myself increasingly using duckduckgo just because of this. Heck, as I use the public DNS servers of google, even deleting Cookies or using browser porn mode doesn't help much.
It's an example that overly smartness actually degrades the experience for me rather than being and improvement.
It's an example that overly smartness actually degrades the experience for me rather than being and improvement.
It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that feels this way. Search for local businesses has become nearly impossible. Whether it's failing to return anything or results that are wholly irrelevant, search and particularly maps have taken a large step backward.
There's a great market opportunity here. (Really) old guard companies like YP still haven't responded to the shift and I infer from Google's backslide that it's not a priority for them.
We can't buy everything from Amazon (esp. Hachette books!)
There's a great market opportunity here. (Really) old guard companies like YP still haven't responded to the shift and I infer from Google's backslide that it's not a priority for them.
We can't buy everything from Amazon (esp. Hachette books!)
This is basically endemic in any Google search related functionality. Be it Maps, Images, regular web search or internal search in Google Apps, more and more I don't get what I asked for but what Google thinks I want, filtered for assumed typos, regions and languages until the result has very little relation to what I'm looking for.
This becomes especially galling when I know the info is there and my keywords are correct and specific, and the search returns absolutely nothing even remotely related.
This becomes especially galling when I know the info is there and my keywords are correct and specific, and the search returns absolutely nothing even remotely related.
The old google maps allows you to paste KML file URL's into the search, now it doesn't work, you have to revert to the old version.
ps. KML files were developed by Google for maps...
ps. KML files were developed by Google for maps...
Keyhole created KML for use in their earth viewer. Later, Google bought them and branded the software as Google Earth.
Supporting KML in the web maps was just a neat thing Google also did.
Supporting KML in the web maps was just a neat thing Google also did.
Ah did not know that, it was for sure a neat thing they did. I manage a site that uses KML files extensively for bike and running paths and this switch did cause a minor bump.
KML was created by Keyhole (the precursor to Google Earth)
And Keyhole was named after the original US spy satellites, the KH series†, dating from 1959. High-res imagery download was via parachute-net.
†http://fly.historicwings.com/2013/02/kh-1-the-first-spy-sate...
†http://fly.historicwings.com/2013/02/kh-1-the-first-spy-sate...
I'm glad tha Apple maps is steadily improving. There needs to be competition so that free services will compete for users by improving the user experience.
I think iOS 8 will include major updates to Apple maps that will integrate transit directions. Apple recently bought the mapping company Embark along with a few other transit-related acquisitions.
I think iOS 8 will include major updates to Apple maps that will integrate transit directions. Apple recently bought the mapping company Embark along with a few other transit-related acquisitions.
The problem is Apple Maps isn't usable outside an iOS device or a specific "Maps" app on Macs only. Share links open google maps, unless you have the above machines. This makes it less than useful for general use.
There has been free competition for ages. Google just has all the mind share.
Google knows:
- Home is in London
- Work is in London
- My most recent restaurant reviews are in London
- My IP address is in London
- My location, if you ask my browser, is in London
Stop showing me a map of the US when I open Maps.
- Home is in London
- Work is in London
- My most recent restaurant reviews are in London
- My IP address is in London
- My location, if you ask my browser, is in London
Stop showing me a map of the US when I open Maps.
I'm in the U.S.
If I open https://maps.google.co.uk/ it shows the UK.
I expect there are people in places outside the U.S. who would be frustrated by maps.google.com showing their current location, so it isn't an easy thing to solve for everyone.
If I open https://maps.google.co.uk/ it shows the UK.
I expect there are people in places outside the U.S. who would be frustrated by maps.google.com showing their current location, so it isn't an easy thing to solve for everyone.
I agree, and this is just a workaround, but use http://maps.google.co.uk instead.
Interesting thing here: Reading the article i was wondering what's the fuss, because Google Maps looked and acted like it ever did. Turned out that, because i was using Opera 12, it was still giving me the old Google Maps. So if you really want the old one on the desktop, that's one workaround. :)
The author is complaining about product development siloing at Google. I know, because I consulted there, that they are working on better cross business integration for internal systems (this is a goal of all large organizations). That said, don't you want some degree of siloing between products? Certainly share infrastructure, share some data as appropriate, but it just seems to me that by having smaller independent teams that you get more creative products, and better productivity with smaller teams.
BTW, I love Google maps and Google Now - my fanboy'ism is based on both pretty good functionality right now, and I my expectation that it will keep getting better. I have some privacy issues with these products but at least for now I consider the functionality worth some loss of privacy - I can see my opinion changing however.
BTW, I love Google maps and Google Now - my fanboy'ism is based on both pretty good functionality right now, and I my expectation that it will keep getting better. I have some privacy issues with these products but at least for now I consider the functionality worth some loss of privacy - I can see my opinion changing however.
Id' really like to have some opinions about Google Now that everyone seems to find awesome. Let's start with the fact that if I want to set a reminder and I don't have an internet connection I can't. Since when having an internet connection is a prerequisite for even basic tasks? Secondly, of all the suggestions it gave me over the months based on my search history none has been helpful. None. If you search for the same things everyday you'll not get related suggestions, but as soon as you search something like the name of that actor that now eludes you, you'll get 2-3 tabs with the latest news on that actor, even though there's no value in it: you already found what you searched for and it was a one time thing. It keeps telling me the time to work even though by now it should've known when it is appropriate to do so. I mean, it's 4 pm, I didn't move from home, do you really think I'm gonna be 7 hours late to work and it's now a good time to remind me?
I was praising Google Now for its potential. I agree that some of the proffered help can be silly.
I find the most useful alerts come from the automated reading of my email; for example: plane schedules and also information on package delivery.
So, I really do believe that Google Now has a lot of potential, but I have concerns about privacy also.
I find the most useful alerts come from the automated reading of my email; for example: plane schedules and also information on package delivery.
So, I really do believe that Google Now has a lot of potential, but I have concerns about privacy also.
You can still switch back to Classic Maps via the question-mark icon in the bottom right. Classic for life.
I'm always very hesitant to rely on fallbacks like that. They tend to go unmaintained, at best, but usually just get removed after some period of time.
There's the slight possibility that it might be different in this case, given that Google has many resources at its disposal. But in other cases, such a fallback is merely an attempt to temporarily mitigate legitimate complains about a now-inferior experience, without doing any actual work.
There's the slight possibility that it might be different in this case, given that Google has many resources at its disposal. But in other cases, such a fallback is merely an attempt to temporarily mitigate legitimate complains about a now-inferior experience, without doing any actual work.
I am having trouble locating it. Am I looking in the right place?
http://i.imgur.com/QJxKMMc.png
http://i.imgur.com/QJxKMMc.png
Your screenshot looks like you're already in classic maps, this is the bottom right of the new version: http://i.imgur.com/K9PJI5V.png
Well, this is embarrassing. Thanks for the follow-up.
Continuing the rant - I would speak for India, if you are going from Point A to Point B it shows you 4 ways to get there. You could filter it with options like - Buses, Trains or Least Transfer, Less walking etc. Now there are times when there are more then 10 buses running between these two points and with a frequency like of 20-30 mins.
So if you happen to use Google Maps then it would show you only 4 results even after you filter down to Buses. Why not show all the options Google? When you have it in your results, just show it.
Because I and lot of people that I know have been in this situation where we are waiting for the bus that google maps is showing and in the process missing out on the ones that are not shown.
So if you happen to use Google Maps then it would show you only 4 results even after you filter down to Buses. Why not show all the options Google? When you have it in your results, just show it.
Because I and lot of people that I know have been in this situation where we are waiting for the bus that google maps is showing and in the process missing out on the ones that are not shown.
It's completely stopped working for me on Chrome / Linux (Rats! WebGL hit a snag error) I've tried a few times to fix this but ultimately I've transitioned to always using my phone for maps.
The new maps.google.com is completely broken for me. Page doesn't load properly most of the time. First thing I do is to revert to classic maps. Maps app on my Android phone works fine though.
Not long ago I did a Google Maps search (on Android) for "restaurants" in my brooklyn neighborhood... and got directed to the Restaurants.com offices in New Jersey. Effing pathetic.
This is beyond creepy: http://www.theheraldng.com/us-marines-satellite-locate-missi...
TechCrunch randomly chose a thing to search and that's where they are? Granted, it's a huge 60,000kmsq area... But of every place TechCrunch could've searched for on Google Maps, it's the same place?
TechCrunch randomly chose a thing to search and that's where they are? Granted, it's a huge 60,000kmsq area... But of every place TechCrunch could've searched for on Google Maps, it's the same place?
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.
I don't know WTF happened, but this is an all-hands-on deck situation for Google: must fix ASAHP.
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.
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.
What ever happened to layers? I can't seem to find a way to show bike routes + terrain or bike routes + traffic or any other combination.
Glad I'm not the only one suffering. I've got 2 problems with this new fullscreen Google Maps - 1) Noticeably slower 2) Drilling down to each step in public transit directions is now very awkward - it used to be very elegant.
At this point Bing Maps is competitive.
I can't get street view to work at all with the new maps. I just get a black screen whenever it tries. Is that happening to anyone else? I'm on Firefox beta (30).
I concur. Google maps needs some serious work.
It's as if it's running on auto-pilot right now or something.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something needs to be changed.
It's as if it's running on auto-pilot right now or something.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something needs to be changed.
I think the new UI is much much nicer than the old one.
If 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.
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.
I blame the current state of Google Maps on micro-optimization, and overconfidence in the ability to predict what you want.
For me the most annoying thing is that apparently I no longer can see traffic and directions at the same time.
[deleted]
Trivia, but Gleghorn-South Kilgore is in Arkansas (AR) rather than Arizona (AZ). It is an interesting case and I wonder how Google decided that location was important to him.
Contextual search is really tough, and the same choices that might give great answers for most answers can yield infuriating answers for other questions. In this case he is searching for something that doesn't exist, and a forest that probably gets searched a dozen times in aggregate a day on Google Maps, likely contrived for effect. That doesn't excuse those cases, but it isn't correlated with the cases where people got surprisingly cogent answers to their questions.
Contextual search is really tough, and the same choices that might give great answers for most answers can yield infuriating answers for other questions. In this case he is searching for something that doesn't exist, and a forest that probably gets searched a dozen times in aggregate a day on Google Maps, likely contrived for effect. That doesn't excuse those cases, but it isn't correlated with the cases where people got surprisingly cogent answers to their questions.
It seems to me that Google hired the Gnome Dev (team) that screwed up the Gnome 2.x GUI.
I 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.
EDIT: I forgot that a sense of humor is not an option here. Geez.
My point stands that if the guy is so incompetent that he can't figure out which state he's looking at, he shouldn't be writing an article critical of a mapping system in the first place. I'm more of a hardware hacker than a programmer, therefore I don't go around writing articles criticizing the latest version control system; I'd end up making a fool of myself as I wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about.
And just to be clear, I actually agree with him that the new Google Maps seems less useful than the old version.
And just to be clear, I actually agree with him that the new Google Maps seems less useful than the old version.
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I 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/
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/
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?