Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[jakeroot]

I love how they act like it's a good thing when literally nobody asked for it and 99% of people would rather it not be there.

99% of people don't want help finding things to do or summaries of reviews? Yeah, somehow, I think you might not be right there. As a reminder, most people don't aimlessly browse maps like we do.

Further, as a resident of a foreign country where I'm still learning about new stuff seemingly every week, getting more help finding stuff and summaries of reviews is actually pretty helpful to me.

I didn't ask for these features any more than you all, but should we really be surprised that an AI-focused tech company wants to introduce AI-driven features? No.

[SectorZ]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Better than Billie Eilish pegman. The only thing society tries to make me like more than AI is her.

[LilianaUwU]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Better than Billie Eilish pegman. The only thing society tries to make me like more than AI is her.

I prefer a basic white girl to my data being scraped, thank you very much.

[vdeane]

I love how they act like it's a good thing when literally nobody asked for it and 99% of people would rather it not be there.

99% of people don't want help finding things to do or summaries of reviews? Yeah, somehow, I think you might not be right there. As a reminder, most people don't aimlessly browse maps like we do.

Further, as a resident of a foreign country where I'm still learning about new stuff seemingly every week, getting more help finding stuff and summaries of reviews is actually pretty helpful to me.

I didn't ask for these features any more than you all, but should we really be surprised that an AI-focused tech company wants to introduce AI-driven features? No.

The problem is that this will further bury the stuff I actually want to look at.  Just look at Google Search.  They had to go so far as to create a "web" search that is basically what Google was 15 years ago before they started adding a ton of stuff to it.  And honestly, I want to look at things myself - not have an AI "guess" at what I want and probably get it wrong.  I can't say that I've ever had a computer guess what I want and get it right.  I have had plenty of times where a computer got it wrong, however.

I remember when Google was a search company, not an AI company.  Quite frankly, I haven't been happy with much of anything the tech industry has done since ~2010 or so and I wish we could go back to the direction that things were headed back then, before everything became enshitified.

[SectorZ]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Better than Billie Eilish pegman. The only thing society tries to make me like more than AI is her.

I prefer a basic white girl to my data being scraped, thank you very much.

I would prefer Lord Carhorn being my chauffeur over either.

[Rothman]

Really tired of Google Maps jumping the gun on shielding Interstates before they're signed in the field.

We keep complaining about it and they keep doing it.

[Rothman]

Google Timeline only being available on my phone really, really still sucks.  The lack of ability to export data from my phone is also quite frustrating.

I will complain about this again and again.

And I am complaining about this again.

[snowc]

I did notice that Google Maps is now discontinuing road data for some rural counties. Also, noticed that satellite view, it keeps it on even when switching to another tab

[Roadgeekteen]

On one of my computers, google maps was soul-crushingly slow on normal chrome but ran perfectly in incognito mode. Strange.

[pderocco]

I did notice that Google Maps is now discontinuing road data for some rural counties. Also, noticed that satellite view, it keeps it on even when switching to another tab

Where do you see that? And on what platform and Maps version?

[pderocco]

https://www.google.com/maps is now showing some imaginary concurrencies in Nevada:

Spurious 2: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JVQ7KeDMzMh5adyV7
Spurious 72: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JZ1sak9eGcaKtWo39
Spurious 316: https://maps.app.goo.gl/D7zZixW9CHjbViqK8

[Roadgeekteen]

Google street view has been causing me fits. I'll be scrolling when it switches to some random guy taking pictures from their car which takes forever to scroll forward. When I switch to another date and scroll forward it switches back to that random guy. Also going over bridges in metro areas it always goes to the road below and never wants to stay on the road. If you click above higher up in the sky it works but it's still annoying.

[bandit957]

Also going over bridges in metro areas it always goes to the road below and never wants to stay on the road.

It never used to do this, but this has become a big problem the past couple years or so.

[Roadgeekteen]

Also going over bridges in metro areas it always goes to the road below and never wants to stay on the road.

It never used to do this, but this has become a big problem the past couple years or so.

Well I just went over I-75 in Ohio with US 30 and it didn't happen. Seems to mostly be a problem in heavily developed areas. Using arrow keys also works to stop it from happening.

[pderocco]

The trouble with the arrows is that they only move you one image at a time, when you often want to take giant strides through, faster than a car would go.

They really need to string image sets together, and stay on them until the user does something like hold the shift key down to switch to a different image sequence.

This is a problem in Google Earth too, but even worse.

[vdeane]

The trouble with the arrows is that they only move you one image at a time, when you often want to take giant strides through, faster than a car would go.

They really need to string image sets together, and stay on them until the user does something like hold the shift key down to switch to a different image sequence.

This is a problem in Google Earth too, but even worse.

It made sense when they allowed people to jump to different roads in the imagery, but they've since made that impossible to do deliberately - but still make it all to easy to do by accident.  I don't know why they're giving us the worst of both options, other than "because Google".

[wanderer2575]

Google street view has been causing me fits. I'll be scrolling when it switches to some random guy taking pictures from their car which takes forever to scroll forward. When I switch to another date and scroll forward it switches back to that random guy. Also going over bridges in metro areas it always goes to the road below and never wants to stay on the road. If you click above higher up in the sky it works but it's still annoying.

Add to this list that clicking on the image to move forward often changes the image date for me.  I'm looking at an image from November 2023; I click and the next image forward is from June 2022.  What, the camera car in 2023 just stopped at that random point and turned around?

[vdeane]

Add to this list that clicking on the image to move forward often changes the image date for me.  I'm looking at an image from November 2023; I click and the next image forward is from June 2022.  What, the camera car in 2023 just stopped at that random point and turned around?

Often it does that because not all years are fully in alignment and where you clicked might not line up with what you had.  But it sometimes does that even when it is, for no real reason.

[Mr. Matté]

Add to this list that clicking on the image to move forward often changes the image date for me.  I'm looking at an image from November 2023; I click and the next image forward is from June 2022.  What, the camera car in 2023 just stopped at that random point and turned around?

Often it does that because not all years are fully in alignment and where you clicked might not line up with what you had.  But it sometimes does that even when it is, for no real reason.

If there's a massive change in the date (e.g. 2023-->2012), pan around and you'll definitely see the beginnings of someone's house being blurred. For some reason, 95% of the time no new imagery gets added in vicinities of those.

[Rothman]

The inability to filter the "places" tab of the Timeline by time period is highly frustrating.

The en@%$#tification is so strong with Google Maps.  It's the quintessential definition.

[Roadgeekteen]

Again on my street view road trip, almost all of US 6 in Nevada is 2022 or newer imagery except for this tiny random section in the middle from 2008. Both ends of it are from the same month. Bruh

[D-Dey65]

Good news. Google Maps no longer misidentifies the bays and other waterways east of the mouth of the Peconic River as being part of the Peconic River.

[NE2]

Good news. Google Maps no longer misidentifies the bays and other waterways east of the mouth of the Peconic River as being part of the Peconic River.

Bad news. Soon it will misidentify the body of water south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

[kphoger]

Bad news. Soon it will misidentify the body of water south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

East Sea of Korea 

[jakeroot]

Bad news. Soon it will misidentify the body of water south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

East Sea of Korea 

Yup. This is hardly the first example of disagreements in naming. Even if one has exactly zero historical context (hint...not the one in my part of the world...)