Google Maps Has Introduced So Many New Features and Design Changes in Recent Months That Getting Directions On It is Becoming an Increasingly Challenging Task (theverge.com)

Earlier this week, Google announced it is bringing business messaging to Maps, the latest in a myriad of features it has introduced to its mapping platform in recent months. A business that wants to participate will need to use Google's "My Business" verification system and its associated app to send and receive messages. While that could prove useful to a number of businesses and customers, it has raised a concern as well. From a report: But that leads me to my third feeling: what the heck is going on with Google Maps? It is becoming overburdened with so many features and design changes that it's becoming harder and harder to just get directions in it. There's Group Planning, there's a social-esque "follow" button for local businesses, you can share your ETA, there's a redesigned "Explore" section, and there's almost no way to get the damn thing to show you a cross street near your destination without three full minutes of desperate pinching and zooming and re-zooming. It's becoming bloated, is what I'm saying. It's Google's equivalent of Big Blue, as Facebook nicknames its flagship app that does a thousand things across countless strange nooks and crannies. It's as though Google wants to kill off Yelp once and for all, but can't let anybody notice how hard it's trying to do that so it just slow rolls those things into Google Maps instead.

Comments

Inevitable

[orev]

It seems like the inevitable fate of any successful product. Wall St demands higher and higher profits, so there is no choice but to keep adding and pushing, even beyond what makes sense. Then the product inevitably becomes so bloated that people only tolerate it until a simpler alternative comes along. Then that becomes successful and the cycle continues...

Re:Inevitable

[Nidi62]

It's also that as people move on or progress up the chain of command, you have new people taking over or joining the group that want to add new things or features. Because you don't get promoted by maintaining, you get promoted by creating or bringing in customers or revenue. Plus maintaining something is boring. So you inevitably get bloat as people just keep throwing on more and more.

Re:Inevitable

[alvinrod]

I don't think it's quite that simple. If it were, the same greedy Wall Street types would stand to make more money recognizing this pattern and stopping their cash cow from dying. Sure, a new product, company, or even industry will come along, but that requires finding a new winner which isn't always obvious. Also, some would probably just demand that no additional features be added to the product either (at least as long as it doesn't allow for greater monitization), as that's money that could be invested elsewhere or returned to shareholders.

As much as the Wall Street fat cats are responsible for various maladies, software bloat and feature creep is the work another group, or perhaps even several others. I think that it's mostly that the people who make software, often fail to understand what actually makes it great.

Re:Inevitable

[Albanach]

It seems like the inevitable fate of any successful product. Wall St demands higher and higher profits, so there is no choice but to keep adding and pushing, even beyond what makes sense. Then the product inevitably becomes so bloated that people only tolerate it until a simpler alternative comes along. Then that becomes successful and the cycle continues...

Before responding like this, why are we even accepting the premise without testing?

I just tested. I opened Google Maps (not already running) on my phone. I searched for somewhere random (US Courthouse). I selected a court from the four options and clicked the icon for directions. I had directions on screen in about 20 seconds from my click to launch the app. I didn't need any unnecessary clicks.

Maybe, since he mentions cross streets, the author is talking about when you search for a place but know you really want to navigate nearby, not to their door. That took me about 35 seconds starting Maps from scratch. You search for your destination, zoom in at the destination to see where you might really want to drive to. Delete the destination and select "Choose from map" and now you can navigate to wherever you place the pin.

So that's not quite as straightforward, but still it's no where near several minutes. It could do the initial zoom for you, but that would be at the expense of showing you the planned route and alternate routes which, I think, are more useful more frequently.

Of course none of this is as simple as using the Google Assistant and saying "Hey Google, directions to the United States District Court". which gets me directions in under fifteen seconds with no clicks and a read out of the preferred major road together with an estimated duration.

Now it's fair to ask whether Maps is becoming too bloated,, but I don't see any evidence bloat is making it harder to get directions.

Re:Inevitable

[Luckyo]

Yes, but they're not Wall Street, and as a result can plan for long term rather than quarterly profit.

How's that again?

[93 Escort Wagon]

"It's Google's equivalent of Big Blue, as Facebook nicknames its flagship app that does a thousand things across countless strange nooks and crannies."

Note to millennials: "Big Blue" has been the nickname for IBM for at least 50 years.

Re:How's that again?

[Luckyo]

Most millenials know this. People really need to stop conflating them with generation Z.

Re:What?

[ranton]

I'm also confused at how anyone can be confused when using Google for directions. I can understand a learning curve on the new features, but getting directions is very easy and has only gotten easier lately.

My guess is the article's author simply had a deadline to produce a story, and this was the best he could think of.

Classical "smart people" screwup

[gweihir]

Lots of intelligence, but really limited real-world understanding at Google. What they have done here is known as the "Second System Effect", nicely described by Brooks in 1975. It is a sign of amateurs at the controls.

Not that I mind. Google has gotten far too evil, far too powerful and far too arrogant. Anything that speeds their demise is a good thing.

Re:Google wouldn't know UI if it bit them on the a

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can end up with Waze? Something that worked great until Google started *tinkering* with it?

Punked by Realtors

[jtara]

They've been punked by Realtors and real estate developers, as well.

Where Google Maps used to show the names (whether formally-adopted or not) of long-established neighborhoods in San Diego, it now shows the names of new condo complexes.

These are not neighborhoods!

- Spruce Canyon Townhomes
- India Street Lofts
- Southpark Townhomes
- Mississippi Street Condos
- The Village in University Heights
- Florida Gardens
- Fashion Walk Condos
- Judson St Condos

They are shown in the same typeface, size, and color as ACTUAL neighborhoods:

- Linda Vista
- Little Italy
- Hillcrest
- University Heights

etc.

Google.... you been punked!

Reading Street Names

[WalrusSlayer]

All the other commentary aside, could they one day fix my pet peeve: the fixed-size, microscopic font for the street names. Doesn't matter how goddamn close you zoom, it always reduces the street name back down to the 0.4 point font. Yeah, I'm a 50-something now who's eyes aren't what they used to be. But I'm pretty sure that even when my eyesight was better, I would still have trouble reading the tiny print. Is it such a crime against humanity to set a zoom threshold where the text size starts to grow with the other features of the map?