Google Maps: The Never Ending Quest For Perfection | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps: The Never Ending Quest For Perfection

googleblog.blogspot.com.au

28 pointssparknlaunch22 comments

> It’s hard to remember what digital maps were like before Google Maps went live in 2005

Everybody used MapQuest. What's so hard to remember about that??

> and the huge technological breakthroughs that transformed clicking on arrows and waiting, to simply dragging a map with a mouse and watching it render smoothly and quickly.

I mean, it was nice, but was this really a "huge technological breakthrough"? It's not like Google Maps invented AJAX. It was a fairly straightforward improvement.

Sorry, but this author exaggerates a wee bit much.

You're right that adding AJAX was a small, straightforward change, but it caused a disproportionate improvement in usability. I personally went from using MapQuest exclusively to GMaps exclusively after a single use.

If you have a copy of Jakob Neilsen's "Designing Web Usability" to hand there is a detailed critique of the MapQuest user interface of the time. In comparison Google Maps really was a breakthrough in usability.

it was a breakthrough, except for scroll wheel zoom. I think that is the worst UI concept I have ever encountered.

I work as a civil engineer and would be miserable without scroll wheel zoom in CAD. I automatically use it in maps.

I assume your concern is that it can scroll the page and the map. If that's the case, then the wheel zoom is not the poor UI, but using it on a page that exceeds the screen length is.

A breakthrough in usability, I couldn't agree more.

But a technological breakthrough (which is what the author was caling it)? Not so much.

To me it was the first real-life example of an interactive, desktop-like experience on the web (that wasn't some crappy flash app). It was a huge leap.

Offtopic: I really don't get the point of the blogspot.com domain now redirecting to blogspot.com.TLD for every Blogger blog.

I actually find it a little bit annoying.

It limits censorship. If an Indian or European court censors some content, it will only disappear from the local tld.

http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...

Does it? I can access all the country specific domains:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/never-ending-quest...

http://googleblog.blogspot.it/2012/06/never-ending-quest-for...

http://googleblog.blogspot.de/2012/06/never-ending-quest-for...

Screws up linking imo: no canonical URL.

It acts like a proxy then. Anyone who knows, can read anything in times of censorship.

That's the whole point, content only disappear from one ccTLD, but is still accessible from other places. It's similar to how the censorship works for the search engine, it's usually limited to one ccTLD (e.g. nazi censorship only affects google.fr).

So the government is expected to say "well we can only block access to our TLD, so let's ignore the others?"

It is more like the defendant shows that e.g. french users access the .fr domain and it would be disproportionate to block other TLDs (especially if it is legal elsewhere). (At least in the court cases I've seen in France)

(btw it is not usually a government, but a court asking for this).

It would be pretty bad if that wasn't the case, then everything would be censored to the least common denominator (India + Europe + Middle East + ...). Or companies wouldn't be able to operate in those countries.

I'm quite impressed. It's a bit eerie, though, to have the illusion of a helicopter shot while noticing the cars are frozen in time.

I'm so excited to have proper offline maps for Android! I have lots of space left on my SD card, let me fill it with map data please.

I wonder what garmin shareholders will think of this.

This won't be the best answer, but I remember once reading how TomTom and Garmin were being punished by the advent of Google Maps and smartphone GPS. New technology essentially cut out the need for paying money for a dedicated satnav or personal navigation device; plus the map content.

With this knowledge the companies were at a cross road. Compete on content or technology? They pursued different paths with different financial results. I believe initially TomTom stayed with tech and Garmin with content.

Unsure the current strategy but know Garmin are big in fitness products but TomTom still remain holding satnavs.

Any improvements in maps is going to hurt both firms.

If this happened to be on or close to April 1, I would have never made it past the picture of the guy on skis.

"So today we’re announcing that offline Google Maps for Android are coming in the next few weeks."

One can't help but wonder at the timing of all of this.

Given that Apple has owned Poly9, Placebase and C3 for nearly 3 years and released nothing makes you wonder what they've been up to. I guess it's enough to rattle Google. I think they would be hoping that Apple confines it to iOS and doesn't "do a WebKit" and game change the market.

I think they want to reassure investors and partners that Google Maps will remain on iOS. Demoing the whole thing on an iPad was no accident.

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