Another thing that needs serious work from a Google Maps API developer standpoint are the staggering javascript memory leaks that still remain, even though Google Maps is out of "beta". You can see this for yourself by just going to maps.google.com and hitting refresh a few times. Basically, you will lose 4-5 MB of memory every time the map loads, until your browser crashes. It'd be easy to blame poor Javascript garbage collection by the current crop of browsers, but virtualearth.msn.com, which is just as complex, has no leaks at all.
This is a serious problem for a lot of developers who are considering implementing Google maps into their own sites. I love the ease of use of the API, but who wants to develop a site which will crash users' browsers after X number of page loads? There is a long thread about it in the developer API group here:
The most concerning thing, however, is the almost complete lack of communication between Google and the developers. This is an issue that has been raised since early July, yet it still hasn't been fixed or clearly acknowledged as a priority. Important changes to the API are only sometimes announced, and even if they are announced, they get quickly lost among the other posts in the newsgroup, because there is no clear way of seeing who is an offical Google poster nor does there seem to be an offical channel of communcation for conveying information. The developer community is fairly strong, but without any offical word or guidance, there is often much confusion.
So, just from a developer (or even savvy user) perspective, don't be fooled by the "out of beta" status. There are still quite a few serious issues that remain unresolved and unacknowledged.
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Another thing that needs serious work from a Google Maps API developer standpoint are the staggering javascript memory leaks that still remain, even though Google Maps is out of "beta". You can see this for yourself by just going to maps.google.com and hitting refresh a few times. Basically, you will lose 4-5 MB of memory every time the map loads, until your browser crashes. It'd be easy to blame poor Javascript garbage collection by the current crop of browsers, but virtualearth.msn.com, which is just as complex, has no leaks at all.
This is a serious problem for a lot of developers who are considering implementing Google maps into their own sites. I love the ease of use of the API, but who wants to develop a site which will crash users' browsers after X number of page loads? There is a long thread about it in the developer API group here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/brThe most concerning thing, however, is the almost complete lack of communication between Google and the developers. This is an issue that has been raised since early July, yet it still hasn't been fixed or clearly acknowledged as a priority. Important changes to the API are only sometimes announced, and even if they are announced, they get quickly lost among the other posts in the newsgroup, because there is no clear way of seeing who is an offical Google poster nor does there seem to be an offical channel of communcation for conveying information. The developer community is fairly strong, but without any offical word or guidance, there is often much confusion.
So, just from a developer (or even savvy user) perspective, don't be fooled by the "out of beta" status. There are still quite a few serious issues that remain unresolved and unacknowledged.