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Google Sunsetting Old Version of Google Maps
New submitter Robertgilberts writes with word that Google is dropping the old version of Maps. The new version of Google Maps came out of preview back in February 2014 and was in beta for several months before that. The only way to access the old version of Google Maps was via a special URL or if you had a very old browser that did not support the new version of Google Maps. Consolation prize: There will still be a lighter-weight version, which "drops out many of the neat Google Maps features in exchange for speed and compatibility."
The old version has the zoom controls where they should be and has less zooming animations and is much clearer to use all respects.
Oh, the one that actually worked well?
Thanks, Google!
The vectors are shiny but the user interface looks like it was designed by a team of managers more concerned about slickness than usability. Moreover it's only fractionally as powerful as the old system. (Among other things, I bet several people in places like San Francisco are really going to miss the combination bicycle/terrain maps.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Probably a mistake considering the "new" one is next to impossible to use.
Or maybe Evil Google just felt like making it hard for people to look shit up.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
The old version of Google Maps works for the majority of users. The new version of Google Maps has quirky bugs for lots of users who haven't bought a laptop/tablet this month, such as the entire map appearing upside down and/or backwards depending on your hardware. Google is (ab)using OpenGL tweaks that aren't universal by a long shot. So, if you're one of the millions of folks with a graphics card that Google decided not to support anymore, good luck and have fun. Kinda like their support of millions of Android phones - nil, zero, no upgrade for you! Go pay for tomorrow's bleeding edge hardware or be left in the dust, this seems to be Google's new motto.
Attention Google, you and your employees might be doing great financially, the rest of us can't necessarily afford to buy or be given the latest greatest hardware. How about some legacy support.
Google has "improved" the Android version of Maps so much that I switched to Nokia's Here maps app. It's much easier to use, faster, and I can download maps for offline use.
Tourist Mode - "Ooooh, a 3D view of Paris! Let's see what our hotel looks like!"
Resident Mode - "I need to confirm the directions to the restaurant I'm meeting my wife at in fifteen minutes and see if my bank has an ATM nearby and I need it right f*cking now."
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Exactly. When Google Reader was shut down, I switched to Tiny Tiny RSS. I didn't want to just go to some other system that I didn't control and that would end up being changed or closed in a couple years. Now I have a system that works, and I don't have to worry about someone else shutting it down. As long as I can find a hosting service with Apache and PHP, it will work for me.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
When new managers come in they want to make their mark. Therefore the MUST change/destroy previous managers' work and replace it with their own.
If they don't, they have nothing to put on their resume.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
They aren't doing this to improve the user experience with the software. They're doing it to address the perception that "new and shiny" is what people want -- not functionality per se. They're aiming at the user experience of getting something new.
You know that marketing slogan, "sell by showing what problem you solve"? The "problem" that marketers have identified is the public's disinterest in things not new and not shiny -- and lately, not thin.
In my view, incompatibility is a sign of poor vision, poor support, and a lack of respect for those people who have come to you for what you offer. Speaking as a developer, if I come up with new functionality that is incompatible with the old, I add the new functionality without breaking the old. There are almost always many ways that can be done. I never did find a worthy excuse not to do it, either.
It isn't Google, or Apple, or whatever vendor that needs to learn a lesson. It's the public. I don't think it can be taught to them, either.
Squirrel!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The part I find particularly most frustrating is when you're just messing around, and they have that "predictive" thing going on, that's supposed to show you what they think you're most likely wanting to see. (e.g. larger streets and landmarks have labels, whereas smaller side streets or whatever have been left blank for better overall legibility.)
However, there are times where I have simply wanted to see the street name of an unlabeled street, and the amount of zooming in, out, and panning around just to HOPE the renderer fills in the name is ridiculous.
I no longer use Google Maps. On my desktop, the dropdown covers the parts of the map I want to look at, and when I close the dropdown the marked location disappears. What are they thinking!
I have a dual core i7 2.8Ghz laptop with 8Gb of RAM with 2x256 SSD in Raid 0 configuration. Every app runs blazingly fast... except the new Google Maps, which slows the computer down to a crawl. I just ran a set of comparisons and the "new and improved" google maps load times were 3-5x slower than the old google maps.
Moreover, I have yet to find a useful feature in the new maps that is not present in the old version.
This boys and girls is how companies come to be functional retards: anyone can tell the old version is better and it is just a switch of a button away from coming back, but internal politics and committees stop this from happening... as if this wasn't enough, now the company doubles down and makes an even stupider decision: removing the previous, faster and superior version.
This phenomena has been studied by Organizational Management types. Decisions taken by committees often match those taken by a person with an 80 IQ level. In this case, that number would be generous.