It's hard to overstate how just plain awful Google Maps is now. It's amazing, in a way. I literally cannot understand how so many smart people can, all together, fail to observe the obvious. Manifestly obviously just shit awful. To observe this one only needs a few seconds with Google Maps. A few minutes cements it. Yet here we are...
It doesn't matter how many smart engineers and ux designers can see the obvious, if one person from upper management can't :( (See also: G+ real names policy)
The funny thing is that it's possible the UI could have been screwed while keeping the search stable, but as the article points out, the search is killing me. It's Apple Maps-ish in a way. I mean, if I'm zoomed in to a particular level and I do a search, there's a good bet that I'm only interested in results within those bounds, right? I'm not crazy to want that am I?
6 more months of classic maps then they will probably phase it out, sadly.
Every time I start Google Maps again - it starts with crippled version.
Update: I just noticed that after switching to Classic, Google Maps is asking me if I want to remember that choice permanently.
The question is not prominent enough though.
For example, if you enable delay e-mail send in gMail, you get a tiny pop-up to undo your message... I guess you just have to learn to always look at the top middle for Google's hidden/minimally displayed functions.
That one's easy. It turns out that roles like management and marketing and customer support are actually important for developing good products, but the culture at "engineer"-led organisations doesn't always acknowledge or respect that.