I signed up for an invite in Gmail to get the new Google maps and I got it and the new Google bugs is kind of buggy. Does anyone know why?
Probably because it's in beta.
Quote from: stormwatch7721 on May 24, 2013, 08:17:20 PM
the new Google bugs is kind of buggy. Does anyone know why?
The name should tip you off...
That is just what I'm looking for.
stormwatch7721, people all the time snip out parts of quotes to let people know what part they are responding to. NE2 did just that and didn't change any of the words of that section of your post. No need for you to go crazy over it.
I'm on the new Google Maps... nifty rendering improvements (especially the WebGL-based 3D satellite view), but there are some regressions in terms of usability. It seems to have been made with most of the focus on touch, and the support (or lack thereof) for keyboard and pointing devices is frustrating. I can't zoom in or out with '+' and '-', let alone navigate with the arrow keys or Page Up/Down and Home/End. Left and right click have the same meaning; no context menu with features like "Directions to/from here."
Just received my invite...and it won't load on my Android phone. Guess I'll have to wait.
Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on May 29, 2013, 03:05:55 PM
It seems to have been made with most of the focus on touch, and the support (or lack thereof) for keyboard and pointing devices is frustrating. I can't zoom in or out with '+' and '-', let alone navigate with the arrow keys or Page Up/Down and Home/End. Left and right click have the same meaning; no context menu with features like "Directions to/from here."
Signs of the times. More and more people are using these services from smartphones and tablets instead of from a traditional computer, and Google isn't the only one designing things with that in mind. Just look at Windows 8.
I would figure, though, that some of this lack of functionality is a consequence of it still being in Beta, and that once it goes live some of the lost options will be restored.
True that, but supporting navigation keys and RMB doesn't get in the way of touch support at all. We'll see. I did submit a report.
(Move to General Highway Talk?)
It's slow-slow-slow from my laptop. I didn't really see much of anything new (just placed in different locations), other than a softer and more vivid color palette, and characters that are occasionally very blurry. I'm sure there's other new stuff in there, but I went back to the old maps...I'll figure out the new one when it's ready for general release.
I realized last week that you can't create an itinerary with multiple legs.
This is unacceptable.
Dragging the line as a cheap way to add "waypoints" will quickly get you a 414 Request URI Too Large error in the AJAX requests.
How do you link on it? On my gaming computer, it seems a little sluggish.
And I miss peg-man for Street View.
I see that the 45 degree aerial views are no longer available. In some cases, those were more recent than the normal aerial imagery.
I also find it to be a bit sluggish.
Quote from: codyg1985 on June 05, 2013, 10:29:50 AM
I see that the 45 degree aerial views are no longer available. In some cases, those were more recent than the normal aerial imagery.
I also find it to be a bit sluggish.
It's a little slow for me, but faster than the experimental WebGL version was. Also, the new Earth mode is much faster and smoother to load than the old Earth plug-in. I do greatly miss all the keyboard shortcuts; as far as I can see there isn't any keyboard control over the beta, only trackpad/mouse. There also isn't much navigation available in Earth mode, unlike the plug-in, which operates similarly to the Earth app.
Agreed about the 45-degree imagery...I'd been led to believe that all of the imagery sources were fully integrated: satellite, 45-degree, 3D terrain, and Street View. Again, the 45-degree was included in the previous WebGL version, with animated rotation and such.
I do like that you can zoom to named places by clicking on them, as has been possible in Bing for a while. I also note that the color scheme has been unified somewhat across the world; previously, places like the UK and Japan had distinct color palettes.
Quote from: KEK Inc. on June 04, 2013, 11:50:26 PMAnd I miss peg-man for Street View.
True. Now you have to select a location, hope it has coverage (there's no way to tell anymore) then click on "Street View." In this day of "intuitive" UIs, this is... lame.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't like having to use the Google Earth-type interface to see satellite imagery. I don't like the way it handles, and I miss the birds-eye imagery.
I ended up switching back.
Just discovered: You can now use the "+" and "-" keys on your keyboard to zoom in and out... but the arrows and page keys still aren't working.
I don't mind the new Google Maps overall, but the lack of easily accessible StreetView is very annoying and it seems that whenever I try to click a GMaps link on GeoHack, it reverts me to the classic GMaps. :banghead:
Is it me, or did they just change the Goog and the images are the wrong size? It could be related to the Firefox update.
For those of us who haven't yet switched to the "new" Google Maps, the symbology updated today. All roads are now the same white color apart from freeways (which are now a significantly darker orange) and a few select major roads (which are close to the old yellowish color).
It's absolutely hideous. No roads at all display on the outermost zoom levels of satellite, which made me think I had labels turned off at first, and it is now virtually impossible to distinguish at a glance between a dirt track and a multilane divided arterial. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which roads are now considered major. For example, Main St through Kingston, NH, which is an unnumbered town road, appears as major, whereas the ONLY roads in northeastern Mass to appear as major are US 1 and MA 125. MA 114, which is a heavily traveled 4-lane road between Salem and Lawrence? Same color as my tiny one-way residential street. MA 2, a 4-6 lane expressway bypass of Concord? Same color. Again, same thing for NH 16 north of Rochester, which is an expressway with both interchanges and intersections, and the main route for traffic headed to the NH Lakes and White Mountains. And same for VA 143, which is an 8-lane boulevard, and VA 199, which is a mix of freeway and expressway.
This is very, very badly done, and it appears to be that way nationwide (Canada is not quite as bad). Google maps is nearly unusable now.
Well, Mexican roads aren't all the same color now, which is good. It's a little weird how they decided which ones to make orange, yellow, and white, so maybe it's no improvement at all.
In general, though, I'm liking the change OK. As time goes on, we'll see if I keep liking it.
Whoa, wait, I take that back. Where did all the FM route numbers in Texas go??? NOT COOL.
They've also removed the ability to rotate the map/imagery.
And I don't like the new icons for parks and whatnot. Everything is just so much harder to find/see.
EDIT: And I'm starting to notice a bunch of roads that were previously shown as freeways are NOT the new dark orange freeway color - notable examples MA 2 west of Acton, US 7 in SW Vermont, and the NH 101 Milford Bypass (this one is even shown in WHITE now!!)
Noticed this before the change, but it appears that Google has adopted MapQuest's "freeway ends at last interchange" system (as opposed to the previous "freeway ends at the first at-grade or driveway", which IMO is how it should be done).
The second-largest city in Oklahoma is...
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FK8lVbPg.png&hash=6e1062acd9b92598fa31e4ae027d456854dbeb9b)
...apparently the same as the first-largest city in Oklahoma. Hm.
It wouldn't be so bad if map-makers weren't so bad at choosing what are major arterials and which aren't. But yeah, in short, Google Maps is terrible in looks and accuracy.
Can we start a big push to get it banned on the site except maybe for Street View? :spin
Quote from: Roadsguy on July 11, 2013, 12:01:48 PM
It wouldn't be so bad if map-makers weren't so bad at choosing what are major arterials and which aren't. But yeah, in short, Google Maps is terrible in looks and accuracy.
Can we start a big push to get it banned on the site except maybe for Street View? :spin
As I've said before, I've found Google Maps to be at least as accurate as any other online map.
I strongly disagree with dropping the yellow colour for arteries. It just makes them harder to distinguish from the local streets/roads. I think that they copied that style from Apple Maps, except that the semi-veteran is copying the newbie that everyone's been laughing at...
So why didn't they copy the use of state highway shields? That's about the one thing Apple Maps does right.
Just about the only thing.
Quote from: vdeane on July 11, 2013, 08:27:24 PM
So why didn't they copy the use of state highway shields? That's about the one thing Apple Maps does right.
So we got the worst of both worlds now.
Still no county lines shown. Is that asking for too much?
Wow. After looking closer at it, the new GMaps could have been so much better than it is. :-|
Anyone know how to utilize the driving directions feature so that I can have more than two points? I can't seem to find the option.
NJRoadfan: When you search for a county, city, township or borough, its limits show up on the map.
Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on July 11, 2013, 11:07:24 PM
NJRoadfan: When you search for a county, city, township or borough, its limits show up on the map.
You shouldn't really even have to do that. Even a site like Mapquest has county lines without searching.
Quote from: TCN7JM on July 12, 2013, 12:16:52 AM
Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on July 11, 2013, 11:07:24 PM
NJRoadfan: When you search for a county, city, township or borough, its limits show up on the map.
You shouldn't really even have to do that. Even a site like Mapquest has county lines without searching.
I use Bing for county lines, because the labels consistently appear for all counties at all zoom levels in which they're displayed. Mapquest's county labels seem to get suppressed a lot, making the name invisible, while Bing seems to have a much better algorithm for that. Oddly, for displaying placenames according to their relative importance, I find Mapquest does that better, and I prefer the bolder type and point symbol they use as well, although at close zooms I would like to see the names applied more in an areal fashion–like Bing does.
In short, each of the mapping programs has different advantages, and so I use various ones simultaneously. At least there isn't yet a monopoly on this service...
Attempted to use the updated Google Navigation app for Android today, and it was a disaster:
- It crashed on me 3 times just trying to put in one address.
- There is no way to return to your navigation if you leave the app (even to do something like answer a phone call!). However, the voice prompts still continue, even though switching back to Navigation brings you back to the choose destination screen with no trace of your previous route.
- The route alternates button is gone. You now must exit and reopen the app to adjust your route. Previously tapping a single button would display route alternates and their travel times, but now the only way to get to this is to press the menu button, and then select route alternates from the options there BEFORE you've pressed start.
- The option to show markers for gas stations, ATMs, etc. is gone.
- Displaying either a route overview or list of directions now takes several taps through options, rather than just the single-tap required before.
- I also had the app refuse to exit after I'd arrived at my destination. It stayed in the status bar until I restated the phone.
- If you want the app to either start from your current location (duh) or display any of your saved/previous destinations, you have to open it, close it, and then reopen it. The first time you open it it's blank.
- Neither contacts' addresses nor locations you've starred in Google Maps appear anymore, previously you'd swipe over to get to them on their own pages.
- The traffic view has replaced green with blue on the map for along your route.
- With the symbology change, the nighttime "dark" color scheme now just makes everything darker, rather than using a different color palette. The result? You can't make out anything other than the street names and the blue line of your route. It takes close squinting to see the actual streets, since they're grey-on-grey.
Not to mention my previous complains about the fact that, for one, you can't tell any of the roads apart because they're all white! White roads on a white background are virtually impossible to distinguish glancing at a 4" screen.
Even browsing on the website it is really hard to pick out the major roads somewhere.
This is becoming quite a rant, but the new Google Maps is truly awful, in every regard.
The Goog is poo. And SHITTY!
The Android app insists on loading both the old and new road images, which takes twice as long. In some cases, it seems to even revert back to the old view...slowing it down even more. The arterial routes marked with thicker white outlines seems to be an attempt to judge a minor from a major route (rather than marking every arterial the same "medium-thickness yellow line"), but with uneven application. You can't see those white lines so well. I guess the daytime contrast is better overall; the colors are a little more vibrant in that regard.
Look, I hate to be one of those they-changed-it-now-it-sucks people, but this really needs some tinkering to get it back up to par with what they had before. I can't imagine that will take long, but they need to stop allowing every dim-witted yokel to just make up a town name, permit completed signage and construction for projects that aren't complete nor open to the public, or to allow them to mark their own driveway a public expressway. It's not WikiMapia.
I discovered today that it is possible to uninstall the app update, thereby going back to the old Google Maps for Android, since the new Maps is essentially unusable.
Still haven't figured out how to get rid of it on the website though. :-/
The iPhone app has an equally confusing and unintuitive UI. Their philosophy seems to be "let's no label anything and let people figure shit out by angrily tapping and sliding everywhere in the app". Seriously, I'm a developper and I think that they should fire their head of UI design.
Quote from: deathtopumpkins on July 14, 2013, 10:13:13 PM
I discovered today that it is possible to uninstall the app update, thereby going back to the old Google Maps for Android, since the new Maps is essentially unusable.
Still haven't figured out how to get rid of it on the website though. :-/
http://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Sioux_Falls,_South_Dakota¶ms=43_32_11_N_96_43_54_W_region:US_type:city
The site's down temporarily right now, but I've found that clicking Google Maps links on that site (which should be back up later today) sometimes registers as a problem with Google Maps and reverts you to Classic. (For some dumbass reason, I kept switching back to the new app until yesterday.) It's a lifesaver. :nod:
the real question is: does it have a scale?
Quote from: TCN7JM on July 15, 2013, 04:13:39 PM
Quote from: deathtopumpkins on July 14, 2013, 10:13:13 PM
I discovered today that it is possible to uninstall the app update, thereby going back to the old Google Maps for Android, since the new Maps is essentially unusable.
Still haven't figured out how to get rid of it on the website though. :-/
http://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Sioux_Falls,_South_Dakota¶ms=43_32_11_N_96_43_54_W_region:US_type:city
The site's down temporarily right now, but I've found that clicking Google Maps links on that site (which should be back up later today) sometimes registers as a problem with Google Maps and reverts you to Classic. (For some dumbass reason, I kept switching back to the new app until yesterday.) It's a lifesaver. :nod:
Doing that always gives me the new look.
Heh heh...uh oh. Either they fixed the problem since yesterday or it was just on my end. :-/
Well the exact link I got was this: https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic&dg=crsh
Another new feature. Looks like they tweaked the contrast on the older low-res streetview photos.
It looks like the bugs are fixed and now you are being forced to switch to the new Google maps look.
Quote from: stormwatch7721 on July 18, 2013, 09:20:30 PMIt looks like the bugs are fixed and now you are being forced to switch to the new Google maps look.
No the bugs aren't fixed (see, for instance this thread (https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=5448)), no you aren't forced to switch (see this workaround (http://o.ht/GMaps/), though you are forced to hunt for a workaround), and no it isn't the new google maps look (its the cartography, but the photo bar, lack of pegman, etc that make the new maps UI isn't there).
You click on the blue "Help & Feedback" drop-down at the top-right, and chose "Return to Classic Google Maps" at the bottom of the list.
Thanks for the tip, formulaone.
I hate to say this but the new Google Maps is just worthless. Even classic G Maps. With the countless mistakes they make and correct every time, why waste the effort when you can just use Bing, Yahoo, or MapQuest?
Quote from: Billy F 1988 on July 20, 2013, 09:34:06 PM
I hate to say this but the new Google Maps is just worthless. Even classic G Maps. With the countless mistakes they make and correct every time, why waste the effort when you can just use Bing, Yahoo, or MapQuest?
Because I've been disappointed by all three of those as well.
Wow. I changed back to classic maps as soon as I could...... No Google. No.
BigMatt
Quote from: formulanone on July 19, 2013, 12:11:46 PM
You click on the blue "Help & Feedback" drop-down at the top-right, and chose "Return to Classic Google Maps" at the bottom of the list.
Every time though I click "Yes" when I get asked "Do you want to make the change permanent." But every time I go back it's changed back to the new Maps.
Quote from: kphoger on July 20, 2013, 11:23:04 PM
Quote from: Billy F 1988 on July 20, 2013, 09:34:06 PM
I hate to say this but the new Google Maps is just worthless. Even classic G Maps. With the countless mistakes they make and correct every time, why waste the effort when you can just use Bing, Yahoo, or MapQuest?
Because I've been disappointed by all three of those as well.
Yeah, so what?!
These will be based around Boston.
There are 6 levels of roads, from least important to most important:
Dead end roads.
Unimportant roads. Most residential roads are this type.
"Yellow roads" : The ones that used to be yellow.
Route numbers (with a few exceptions: MA 145 is a "yellow road" , but Sylvan Street in Peabody MA is in this category despite not being a route number). County routes are not included, and they are usually less important.
Orange roads: They have always existed (only roads visible at lowest zoom level on April Fools 2013), but they have looked normal before the color change. All US routes, except ones with A, are orange, but some state routes are also orange, especially in the state of New York.
Freeways, a dark orange.
The outermost 3 levels show no roads.
Zoom in one, and you see the interstates. Not all freeways, but just the interstates.
Zoom in two, and you see some orange roads (MA/NH 125, but not MA 2) and all interstates. Note that non-interstate freeways (MA 128 in Gloucester) are not shown, unless they are also US routes (US 202/MA 2, though orange and not freeway). The orange roads are gray.
Zoom in one, and the orange roads actually turn orange. White US routes (like 1A and 2A in Maine) show as a thin line.
The next zoom level is probably the worst. State routes appear at random, even if they are orange routes or freeways (MA/NH 125, MA 24)
Zoom in one, and you get something much better. "Yellow roads" , route numbers, orange roads, and freeways are shown correctly. "Yellow roads" are a thin line.
Zoom in one, and you see the same, but unimportant roads are shown, but thinner than "yellow roads" . Dead ends are still not shown.
Zoom in one, and "yellow roads" are not thin lines anymore.
Zoom in one, and dead ends appear.
Zoom in two, and everything is shown as an actual road and not as a line.
Problems with which roads are orange:
I feel that MA 114, NH 16 (non-freeway part), and MA 9 should be orange. It seems really strange to make 9 mostly white (it's a divided highway with teacup handles) with 125 orange.
So, looks like the revamp has gone live for everyone now.
Things certainly work differently - not being able to right click on the map is weird, but I suppose this is forward thinking given the increasing number of devices people are using where there is no such thing as being able to right click. I can see how the new interface is more friendly to anyone using a touch screen instead of a mouse.
Still, after playing with it a bit, I'm not finding any functionality that was actually removed. The only thing conspicuously missing is the image date info in street view (which was nice but not really that important in the grand scheme of things).
The fact that it now uses vector graphics rather than raster tiles is a definite plus since this is friendlier on people's data plans (and in theory should mean things load faster although I'm not noticing a difference on my laptop).
A nice improvement is that if you're in Street View you can now jump around real fast by just clicking on the map. This is less immediately intuitive than clicking and dragging, but faster and smoother once you get used to it (and quite fun to play with. Whee! I'm teleporting! :P).
Overall I think I approve of this. It seems the kinks in the beta people were complaining about have been worked out.
It's not back for me.
And you could always click in Google Street View. It's not new. With perfect clicking, you could go about 50 MPH.
Quote from: 1 on February 14, 2014, 08:39:47 PM
And you could always click in Google Street View. It's not new. With perfect clicking, you could go about 50 MPH.
You were and still are able to click on the image. But now you can click on the map on the lower left and instantly jump to anywhere with in a 1/4 mile radius. I just went all the way across Manhattan in 8 clicks. :D
My computers don't do WebGL, so it's still tiles for me even in the new version. I'm sticking with the old one for now - it's faster than the "lite" version of the new maps, and I can use the distance measurement tool, plus street view doesn't cause driving directions to vanish in the old maps.