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Google Maps Now Uses Street View To Show You Exactly Where To Make Turns (theverge.com)
Google Maps has received a small design update that will show Street View images of every road you're supposed to turn onto. "If you tap the image, Street View will open up to that location, showing an arrow in the direction you're meant to turn," reports The Verge. From the report: It's a small change, but it could make a difference at confusing intersections or for people (like me) who are very bad with street names. The change was spotted by Android Police. Unfortunately, the images display as tiny thumbnails until you tap to open them up, so while the addition is definitely helpful, it's not quite glanceable information -- you'll definitely have to tap to open every turn that you want to see in detail. The feature only appears to be on Android for now. But Google's iOS app usually has the same look and features, so it may just be a matter of time before it gets updated. Android Police also points out that Google changed the bottom navigation bar when getting directions. It takes up a bit more of the screen now, but it's also a bit more explicit about what tapping certain things will do. Altogether, seems like a smart change.
I thought they already did this. Anyway, not to be annoying, but is it a slow news day? There is nothing at all more interesting to take up Slashdot space than some minor incremental and fairly obvious improvement in Google Maps for people that use it for in-car navigation?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Google is the bee's knees!
Look, they even made the "avoid toll" sticky on mobile, and it only took what, eight years of complaining?
Being told to hang a left in a mile, being told to hang a left in half a mile, being told to hang a left in a quarter mile, being told to hang a left in 300 yards, being told to hang a left in 100 yards, being told to hand a left at the next light, missing the turn because you didn't have enough warning.
Jeezuz fuck us, let's have an app that sends all these people onto train tracks and tells them to wait until a train hits them.
http://slapthebaldy.com/comics/7.html
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Please revert to the old version.
UX Designers are just pretentious failed graphic artists
A job that shouldn't and wouldn't have existed if devs didn't treat the UI as an afterthought
Am I the only one who remembers this already almost a decade ago, back when Google Street View was fairly new? Back before it was assumed that everyone had a smartphone with GPS and a data plan, when you might still print out your Google Maps directions, there already was an option to add a Street View map to every turn.
I remember trying it once for a couple long trips to unfamiliar locations... And I pretty much found the photos pretty useless. Small maps that showed me the details of each junction? Yes, they were occasionally helpful. But photos of the turn often from an angle that wasn't the same as what I was looking at?
The only photo I found helpful was the final destination for a place I hadn't been to before. It was sometimes helpful to have a visual on that in advance. Obviously this is a bit different now with integration into an app in real time, but I personally would still just prefer an overhead traditional map view, which gives me a sense of context rather than a single perspective.
Google needs to be slapped. No distraction is acceptable. Hands-Free laws mean hands-fucking-free. Almost every state has them.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Will it include pictures of good pedestrians to run over while you are operating a large object at high speeds while looking at your phone?
what I want them (or Apple or anyone) to add is recognition that parking lots have multiple entrances. So when I go to the grocery store, it should tell me to turn left down another road and make a right into the parking lot -- instead it tells me to keep going down the road, past the store, make a right, make a u-turn on that street, make a left and then a right into the entrance that has the right address on it.