Classic Google Maps RIP

Joaz Banbeck · #1

Google terminated the old google maps last week. It was quick, easy to use, and light on CPU cycles.

Is it just me, or does anyone else miss it?

DrStraw · #2

Never used it. Just be glad they didn't wipe the actually houses of the map. They have the power.

Bonobo · #3

Yup, me.

Bantari · #4

Hmm... I am confused.

I go to goole, type in an address, and I get a map of the area. This is how it worked before as well. Looks the same too, more or less. I can find direction from here to there, just like before. I can go to street view or see images, just like beofre.

The app on my cell phone works the same as well.

So what has changed and why is that so tragic?
Just asking...

Uberdude · #5

The thing I miss most is the correct UK road colours. A year or two ago Google unilaterally recoloured roads in the UK against the standard convention here (which is reflected in road signs; blue motorways, green trunk roads, red A roads, orange B roads, yellow C, white minor). Not only was this ugly and arrogant, many A/B/C/minor roads that used to be differently coloured all became indistinguishable white/gray which made route finding next to impossible on them (e.g. http://www.markgoodge.com/2013/07/googl ... n-and-red/). There was a hack I had to sort-of fix this on classic, but it doesn't work on new. As the author of that links says:

Quote:

Google no longer expects users to use its maps as maps. Instead, it expects the maps to be merely a means of conveying other data, such as computer-generated routes, and advertising, and links to other Google products. The idea that someone would look at a map, and, just by looking at it, be able to tell how to get from one place to another seems incredibly old-fashioned. And so there’s no longer any need for the visual clues necessary to make map-reading easy and intuitive.

DrStraw · #6

Quote:

Google no longer expects users to use its maps as maps. Instead, it expects the maps to be merely a means of conveying other data, such as computer-generated routes, and advertising, and links to other Google products. The idea that someone would look at a map, and, just by looking at it, be able to tell how to get from one place to another seems incredibly old-fashioned. And so there’s no longer any need for the visual clues necessary to make map-reading easy and intuitive.

Hey, if people actually think for themselves then they cannot easily be dumbed down and so they cannot be controlled.

Fedya · #7

I don't care for it either.

By the same token, the Internet Movie Database seems finally to have gotten rid of its plain long list pages of people born on this date. Now you only get 50 people on a page, so instead of scrolling up/down to find people born in, say, the 1910s (I blog about classic film, so I'm generally looking for people born in the 1890-1930 range), you have to click through multiple pages.

You can, however, sort by height, which is ever-so-helpful. :roll:

tj86430 · #8

When I go to https://www.google.fi/maps it looks pretty much as it used to be. What has changed?

perceval · #9

slightly off topic but i love this little game around google street view/goolge maps:

https://geoguessr.com/world/play

to me, australia ressemble south africa, but they are so far appart it hurts.
Same for east and west russia

DrStraw · **#10**

perceval wrote:

slightly off topic but i love this little game around google street view/goolge maps:

https://geoguessr.com/world/play

to me, australia ressemble south africa, but they are so far appart it hurts.
Same for east and west russia

Nice. I'd never seen that before. No idea what a good score is but I scored 10300.

EdLee · **#11**

Could someone post a side-by-side comparison of the previous version and the current version, on the same location ?

Uberdude · **#12**

EdLee wrote:

Could someone post a side-by-side comparison of the previous version and the current version, on the same location ?

Not unless they saved them already. That's the point, Google have removed the ability to choose the old version. But if you look in the link I posted you can see such a comparison for a part of England (it's changed even more since then with different navigation tools, image banners and more, but that shows the road colour change).

Bantari · **#13**

Uberdude wrote:

The thing I miss most is the correct UK road colours. A year or two ago Google unilaterally recoloured roads in the UK against the standard convention here (which is reflected in road signs; blue motorways, green trunk roads, red A roads, orange B roads, yellow C, white minor). Not only was this ugly and arrogant, many A/B/C/minor roads that used to be differently coloured all became indistinguishable white/gray which made route finding next to impossible on them (e.g. http://www.markgoodge.com/2013/07/googl ... n-and-red/). There was a hack I had to sort-of fix this on classic, but it doesn't work on new. As the author of that links says:

Quote:

Google no longer expects users to use its maps as maps. Instead, it expects the maps to be merely a means of conveying other data, such as computer-generated routes, and advertising, and links to other Google products. The idea that someone would look at a map, and, just by looking at it, be able to tell how to get from one place to another seems incredibly old-fashioned. And so there’s no longer any need for the visual clues necessary to make map-reading easy and intuitive.

This explains why I see no difference when I look at Google maps in here.

So they changed colors in England, eh?
Hmm...

Looking at the "old-vs-new" images in the article you link, I realize that here in the US we have had something resembling the "new" for a long time now... come to think of it, I don't really remember *ever* seeing green and blue roads. Looking at some paper maps I purchased for my European trips, I also do not see any funky road colors. Is that specific to UK?

In any case, I feel your pain, dude - but I still think too much is made out of it. "Route finding next to impossible"? Puh-leeze... I have been using Google for sucessfully finding routes for years now, all over the world, did not have any problems at all. Same for the paper maps. You will get used to it as well. I think what Google did was to bring the UK map to be on par with the rest of the world, so when somebody visits they can see the familiar map and colors and be able to find their way easier. Which is not a bad idea, in and of itself.

But I understand that, like every change, this change takes some used to.

Fedya · **#14**

It's not just that, Bantari. There's something different about the route planner and the map that it presented for the route, that I can't quite put my finger on.

DrStraw · **#15**

Fedya wrote:

It's not just that, Bantari. There's something different about the route planner and the map that it presented for the route, that I can't quite put my finger on.

So routes are now designed to avoid sensitive government installations?

Bantari · **#16**

Fedya wrote:

It's not just that, Bantari. There's something different about the route planner and the map that it presented for the route, that I can't quite put my finger on.

Oh really? Yeah, I can see where this can mess things up. It was not apparent from the article Uberdude linked.
It is weird they make such changes then... if it worked, why break it.
I see Apple doing that a lot lately as well.

Fedya · **#17**

It may have been working for the user, but not for Google or the customer (the advertisers).

Uberdude · **#18**

Bantari, several years ago Google maps used the standard road colours for the country the road was in, so British motorways were blue, French autoroutes red with a yellow stripe and German autobahns red (iirc). So if you viewed a trans-national map the colours would switch. I can appreciate an inelegance to this, and also people navigating in foreign lands might not understand the colours (though I expect the vast majority of use of Google maps is not foreign). Google switched a few years back to the same colour scheme for all countries (perhaps based on US standards or their own). Another approach would be to use the standard colours of the user's home country for all countries to avoid the foreign unfamiliarity mentioned above. But rather than giving the user choice from these various options all with pros and cons, they picked one and forced it on users.

But whilst the above is simply another case of Google picking one of several reasonable choices rather than allowing the user to choose, making many classes of road which were formerly differentiated by colour now all indistinguishable white is simply a dumb step backwards. A white road could be a wide single carriageway with streetlights suitable for 70mph driving or an untarmaced country dirt track where meeting another vehicle means reversing serval miles. And for what gain? It looks cleaner? A blank piece of paper is very clean but doesn't make a good map.

Joaz Banbeck · **#19**

Uberdude wrote:

... A blank piece of paper is very clean but doesn't make a good map.

In 'The Hunting of the Snark', Lewis Carroll wrote:

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!"

Classic Google Maps RIP

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