A Sad Day for Google Maps

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
maxglide
Posts: 194
Joined: 19 May 2013, 5:35pm

A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by maxglide »

It looks like Google have finally put to death Classic Maps. This makes a great deal of sense: Develop a terrific product, then - ignoring almost unanimous negative user feedback - utterly wreck it. Well done Google, this is a 'classic'.

If you give a hoot, there's a petition:
https://www.change.org/p/larry-page-ceo ... oogle-maps

More about it here, too:
http://techforluddites.com/google-is-ge ... -for-good/
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syklist
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by syklist »

maxglide wrote:It looks like Google have finally put to death Classic Maps. This makes a great deal of sense: Develop a terrific product, then - ignoring almost unanimous negative user feedback - utterly wreck it. Well done Google, this is a 'classic'.

Good luck with the petitions. Google's track record is all about "no U-turns".

Happily I have found an alternative which is faster than Google Classic Maps was, and much faster than New Google Maps is. It has a fixed left route planning menu like Google maps used to have.

It is http://www.openrouteservice.org/

The main difference with Google maps is that you have to enter way points in the left hand menu manually and place them in the right order, rather than simply clicking on the route to add a way point with Google maps. Once you have added the way point in the left menu you can drag it round the map as you please. I have got used to this very quickly. It might sound a bit time consuming but the time I spend looking at the map to find the name of a way point and adding it to the menu, is easily compensated by the fact that the map itself is much faster. Zooming in and out works quickly even on low spec hardware.

The plan a cycle route option seems quite good, at least for the routes I have tried planning here in Norway. It is great to be rid of Google maps.

Note openrouteservice is a mapping service and does not seem to offer satellite images nor Street View like functionality. If you are planning a cycle tour in Norway and want to look at satellite images I can recommend http://kart.finn.no
So long and thanks for all the fish...
Psamathe
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by Psamathe »

I have always found the new Google Maps very slow to load (and it still is for me). Even 3rd party sites that use Google are slow loading.

Ian
22camels
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Joined: 21 Sep 2013, 8:15pm

Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by 22camels »

yeah, I've been clicking 'revert to classic google maps' for some time now, and feared this day. Guess will have to get used to it. I'm not an IT expert so not sure but the new google maps looks like one of those higher bandwidth modern sites which are always slower than classic websites.. On the other hand, it's good to see terrain view is back in the new google maps as this was my main reason for reverting to classic in the first place. The other thing the new google maps has is an elevation profile when you do cycling directions, that was not there in the classic version as far as I could tell. Then again, I would not use google for serious cycle route planning.
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megilleland
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by megilleland »

I use Routeyou.com This uses google maps and I find it loads up faster than the main google site and doesn't freeze.
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jamesgilbert
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Location: Lyon

Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by jamesgilbert »

The new version is very slow for me too, but even with the old version I rarely used google maps for route planning as there are much better services out there (http://cycle.travel/map being one of the best in my opinion).

What I do find google maps useful for is looking for campsites, supermarkets, bike shops, hotels, cinemas, etc etc in a specific area. As you often get a link directly to the website from the map, this makes planning accommodation very easy, and I haven't yet found a similar service that works all over Europe.
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syklist
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by syklist »

jamesgilbert wrote:The new version is very slow for me too, but even with the old version I rarely used google maps for route planning as there are much better services out there (http://cycle.travel/map being one of the best in my opinion).

It seems a bit challenged geographically speaking. It finds Gol here in Norway, and can plan a route over to FInse but it then places Gol in Oslo and expects you to take the boat from Oslo to Haugesund (?) There is also virtually no information on the map north of Oslo...
a_temp.jpg
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Richard Fairhurst
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

I haven't added anywhere above 60°N to cycle.travel, because the SRTM elevation data only goes to 60°N and that's what's used for the hillshading on the map, for the route-planning calculations, and for the elevation profile display. Other sources of elevation data are available, but it'll be a lot of work to gather them together and to adapt the code to work with the various different formats, and it's not been my top priority.

The countries currently included in cycle.travel's mapping and route-planning are Andorra, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, Ireland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

(I am currently working on adding a couple more countries... but I'm afraid neither of them are Norway!)
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
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syklist
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by syklist »

That would explain it then :)
So long and thanks for all the fish...
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ConRAD
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by ConRAD »

syklist wrote:... the main difference with Google maps is that you have to enter way points in the left hand menu manually and place them in the right order, rather than simply clicking on the route to add a way point with Google maps...

... if you right click with the mouse directly on the route you get exactly what you were used to with gmaps.
The options are: starting point, destination point, intermediate point. Gpx file export is then immediate.
GREAT !!!
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horizon
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by horizon »

jamesgilbert wrote:What I do find google maps useful for is looking for campsites, supermarkets, bike shops, hotels, cinemas, etc etc in a specific area.


AIUI, this is what you are supposed to think. Again, AIUI (so I could be wrong) all those nice little branches of the usual multinationals are paid for map-based adverts. Whereas an Ordnance Survey map might have shown PH for a pub, Google will show George Inn but only if the George Inn has paid them to do so. At what point they pay, I'm not sure (e.g. map level or number of hits or they bid for it or whatever).

If anyone wants to further explain this and enlighten me, please feel free. My current understanding though is that Google isn't a map at all but an advertising flyer.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
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jamesgilbert
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by jamesgilbert »

@Horizon Yes, I'm sure that does happen to some extent, especially with things like restaurants or shops - the same as with a classic google search. For campsites it's generally a lot more reliable though.
Psamathe
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by Psamathe »

horizon wrote:
jamesgilbert wrote:What I do find google maps useful for is looking for campsites, supermarkets, bike shops, hotels, cinemas, etc etc in a specific area.


AIUI, this is what you are supposed to think. Again, AIUI (so I could be wrong) all those nice little branches of the usual multinationals are paid for map-based adverts. Whereas an Ordnance Survey map might have shown PH for a pub, Google will show George Inn but only if the George Inn has paid them to do so. At what point they pay, I'm not sure (e.g. map level or number of hits or they bid for it or whatever).

If anyone wants to further explain this and enlighten me, please feel free. My current understanding though is that Google isn't a map at all but an advertising flyer.

This is the reason I avoid Google maps (as well as Apple maps and Bing maps) - at least as far as possible. I don't like having to see the world according to Google/Apple/Bing's commercial interests. World according to Google is not what we really need.

Stick to OpenStreet Map. It contains reference information (like supermarkets and what brand) though probably not as many and not as highlighted ("in your face") as the commercial operators.

I don't know about Google, but Apple Maps is still very inaccurate. And Apple can be quite "lethargic" about making reported corrections. I reported where the show a road and there is no road (and they can confirm this from their satellite images as it's across farm fields; and more than 2 months later still not fixed. And (as an experiment) I reported a supermarket misplaced (it was half a mile away from it's real position) and that got fixed pretty quickly - commercial interests !!

Ian
Malaconotus
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by Malaconotus »

Nooooooo!

The new maps don't work on any machine I own. Streetviewing is a big part of ride planning for me and I can't do it now. had been going back to classic maps each time. What do I do now?
RJS
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Re: A Sad Day for Google Maps

Post by RJS »

I happened to be looking on the Cannondale web site yesterday, their "find a dealer is still in old google map", don't know if you can use this to go further with things you may want to do.
Cheers, Rob.
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