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What Happened to Google Maps? (justinobeirne.com)
Google Maps has reduced the number of cities it shows by up to 83% over the past few years, according to Justin O'Beirne. Maps, in addition, has increased the number of roads it showcases. O'Beirne, who writes about digital maps, in a blog post outlines the changes Google has made to its mapping and navigation service over the years. The side-by-side screenshots comparison on his blog post shows that Google has largely abandoned labelling towns and cities in favor of showing as many roads as it can. He has also looked into several elements of Maps from the design standpoint, and questioned Google's decision. He writes: If these roads were so important that they deserved to be upgraded in appearance, why weren't they also given shield icons? After all, an unlabeled road is only half as useful as a labeled one. [...] [Comparing Google Maps to a paper map] Even though it's from the early 1960s, the old print map has so much more information than the Google Map. So many more cities. So many more road labels. And the text size is comparable between the two. O'Beirne believes that Google has made these changes to better serve mobile users. "Unfortunately, these 'optimizations' only served to exacerbate the longstanding imbalances already in the maps," he writes. "As is often the case with cartography: less isn't more. Less is just less."
If the data on Google Maps is wrong then you can submit a correction. They offer this function for a reason.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Look into Nokia HERE maps (seriously). It's free and let's you pre-load map data for a LOT of countries, so you can use the app completely offline. iOS and Android versions both exist.
Actually, it probably did get fixed, and then got broken again when they pulled data from upstream. Companies like Google and Apple get their mapping data from a number of providers, then merge that data together. If those providers give them bad info, if they just fix it in their local database, it will get stomped on by the next data pull. To fix it correctly, it has to get pushed up to the providers. If multiple providers give them incorrect data, it has to be fixed upstream by multiple upstream providers. Worse, those providers, in turn, get their info from multiple providers. This continues until you reach some government contractor.
If you're really unlucky, the city planning office tells that contractor not to fix the data, because Google Maps says that it is correct. And then Google fixes it on their side, and then the city sends the wrong data to TIGER, who sends it to somebody else, who sends it to somebody else, who sends it to Google or Apple, reverting the fix all the way down the line.
Submit a second report about the problem. Then at the same time, submit a report to your city planning office. Odds are at least even that they're the problem.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They deprecated the + thing a few years ago. They now treat anything in double quotes as having a + in front.
Good lord help me, Google god damned maps!
I'll try my best to keep it short and sweet:
The DUMBEST thing those idiots have done is remove the 50/50 split from the street view option. It's without a doubt, the most moronic @#$%ing thing they've done. It's incredibly frustrating.
Luckily I have a screenshot of what I'm talking about.
http://chattypics.com/files/5050split_sueprsqg9z.jpg
You used to be able to do a 50/50 split, one of what you're looking at and 2 of where you "are" on the map what direction you are "facing". Any idiot with basic N.E.S.W directional skills, found this incredibly useful.
We can still use street view and find what the building looks like that we're after, but it's much harder to identify where on the map it is, what direction it's facing, what the number is. We can do it, definitely, it's still down the bottom in the corner, VERY small - but the old system was incredibly easy to navigate in a combo street / maps view. I can't even put into words properly just how much superior the old version was, vastly is a big understatement.
Perhaps you guys are sick of me but I'm personally getting frankly, fucking sick of typing shit up like this time and time again about applications, phones, websites, because idiots feel compelled to change things, not for the sake of improvement, but for the sake of change.
It's times like this I WISH slashdot had a much larger audience, I WANT some piece of shit at Google to see this post and understand just how badly they fucked up. Yes, they did, fuck up, I'm sorry but there's no other way to put it.
Tired of these changes, tired of things becoming worse for the sake of it.
Google maps is literally an inferior product to what it was many YEARS ago.
P.S Don't bother going back through the feedback system to these wallies, they have no idea. It's as bad as sending feedback to the Government at this point
- Frustrated.