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Comment by lnanek2 | Hacker News Reader

I wish there were some good competitors. The updated Google Maps for Android really sucks. It is much tougher for me to use than before they minimized the UI and worse, it is untrustworthy since they removed the GPS accuracy circle and have to try to guess the accuracy based on much the pointer sliders around. Can't even tell if you are actually on a block or not now in cities without hoofing it over to an intersection and trying to convince the damn UI to show you a street name by zooming and in out a bunch. Meanwhile I have to switch to Nokia or Apple, I guess, if I want to switch maps for real. OSM is not good enough.

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You know, I don't really mind the new UI. Sure it's different and takes some getting used to, but I don't think it's objectively "worse".

Plus, it does has an accuracy circle, at least on my phone. (Android 4.0.3, Maps 7.1.0)

Wow, I really dislike the new Google maps. I must have sent them 10 bug reports on the thing in the first week. And I'm still frustrated with it.

Having not done user tests, I can't prove it's objectively worse, but it is certainly worse for me. They've totally broken my use of starred places. Search is much slower, especially doing a new search to replace the current one. You can no longer leave navigation running while doing a search. The screen where they offer you route options is useless to me; it gives me 1-3 indistinguishable options, and I always just click on the first to see what it's talking about. The menu button frequently doesn't do anything; the search button never does.

I would pay them cash money to give me the old version back.

How did you use starred places?

Well for one they used to always show on the maps... now most of the time they don't. It used to also be easier to load an address close to where pub wanted to navigate and select what is near here... that option is gone, so it is harder to navigate somewhere now when you know where you want to go, but don't have the actual address. Stared places have you the option of having a location already selected, but now it is very inconsistent.

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