
The New Google Maps - uptown
https://maps.google.com/help/maps/helloworld/desktop/preview/?resubmit=true
======
Osmium
What would be really cool is if the intro video/examples was automatically
generated using map data from your current location.

On another note: it's interesting that it wasn't until I saw this design
refresh that I didn't realise just how stale the old design was. It seems like
Google revolutionised the maps world when they first released it, and then
they let the interface stagnate ever since, so this is nice to see.

~~~
devindotcom
I don't really think it was stale or stagnated exactly. You probably saw
recently a few posts about how much work goes into them and why exactly
they're better than Apple's or Microsoft's. It's very subtle and fundamental
stuff. They didn't change much, it's true, but that's because the competition
was so bad and they leapfrogged them by so much at the beginning.

We'll see how the new look works in action - I can't say I see a huge
improvement, though there are definitely a few features that make it more at-
a-glance effective.

~~~
Spearchucker
In comparison to <http://here.com> Google Maps was stale.

~~~
seszett
For some reason, Kerguelen island and quite a few others in the Indian Ocean
don't even exist on Nokia's maps.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Nokia's maps, judging from what here.com shows, seem to be essentially useless
outside the U.S./Europe.

Japan/Korea/etc are essentially not covered at all ... they don't even seem to
have any _roads_ except for the most major highways—Tokyo on here.com
literally has like five roads!—and what very little data they do have is often
wrong.

Even Apple does _vastly_ better... oO;

~~~
Spearchucker
YMMV.

I've used it in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia, and was very
impressed. Little tracks that hardly qualify as a road are there, and
reliable. The other big deal in that part of the world is that both maps and
navigation are 100% functional when offline.

------
kailuowang
Google map was the one of the first web applications that revolutionized the
web with Ajax. This new Google map could be another one that revolutionize the
industry again with WebGL.

~~~
spyder
Two years ago they had an experimental version of Maps that used WebGL and was
much smoother than the current one, but they removed it for some reason:
[https://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](https://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1630790)

~~~
scribu
I don't know about you, but I always had the "Want to try MapsGL?" link down
in the left sidebar.

Now, since I did have MapsGL enabled, it says it's been integrated into the
new Google Maps that's being previewed here.

------
onemorepassword
"Request an invite".

Dear god, Google still thinking it's a cute little startup. It really is the
Microsoft story all over again.

~~~
manacit
Facebook has consistently done the same thing with all of their new features
(Graph Search, Timeline, etc). I fail to see why this is so egregious?

~~~
onemorepassword
It's the disconnect between what Google is (the 800 pound gorilla that can
roll out a new product like an appliance manufacturer can roll out a new
toaster), and how Google sees itself (the brave disruptive startup launching
something cool in private beta).

It's the same disconnect that we know from Microsoft, that couldn't see itself
as the monopolist they were, because their self-image was still that of the
little startup that took on the mighty IBM.

Of course it could all just be marketing, like every word out of Google these
days is just marketing without substance.

Either way, Google doesn't listen to user feedback and is perfectly capable of
rolling out a new product on a global scale. "Request an invite" is BS.

~~~
moystard
You sound very biased against Google. In that particular case, I think the new
Maps is not ready for prime launch yet. I think two things tend to prove that
this is the truth: no Google Maps API are available for this new Maps, the
presenter (forgot his name) mentioned that they were not ready for prime time;
also for other products announced today, they rolled them out right away (new
Google+, new Google Music, etc.) so why would they not release this one?

------
_lex
This is a straight up attack on yelp, targeting local commerce. Their goal is
that instead of searching yelp for massage therapy, you search google maps.
That sort of query is extremely valuable (trust me - my company pays for it
every day). It makes a lot of business sense - it's probably the most
lucrative way to monetize maps, and get people to use google reviews more.

~~~
dreamdu5t
Yelp built a community around top reviewers and incentives people to review.
Google Places doesn't really offer incentives for people to review or to spend
time reviewing.

~~~
OGinparadise
Google has Search to promote their stuff, even if it's inferior. Put theirs on
top, meaning other reviews are much harder to find (people click on top
links). That's how many people installed Chrome for example

~~~
cromwellian
You really think Chrome when launched was an inferior browser? It had a
radically simplified UI, secure multiprocess sandboxing, vastly faster
Javascript engine, and continuously autoupdating system. It reignited the
browser wars again, and I congratulate Firefox for upping their game, and now
overall, if you look at browsers today (Chrome, Firefox, IE11) they are vastly
more capable than the situation before when Chrome 1.0 was launched. Yes,
Google marketed Chrome, but users love it, just like iPhone users love it
regardless of the number of Apple billboards or commercials, because
fundamentally, it is a good product.

You think when Google Maps was launched their primary competitors (e.g.
MapQuest) had anything comparable? Maps was one of the first, large scale, Web
2.0/AJAX applications. At the time, most other mapping products were still
reloading an iframe or the whole page everytime you needed to change the map.

Gmail was lightyears better in both performance, spam filtering, organization,
and speed compared to other major WebMails at the time.

The New Google Maps is a quantum leap over competitors like Bing Maps, even
native iOS maps.

------
InclinedPlane
It's sort of hilarious that it's taken this long for google to realize how
beneficial and valuable it can be to add simple social features to their
existing products rather than trying to shoehorn a social experience onto
everything even when it doesn't add anything in hopes of driving adoption.
Pull is almost always better than push.

~~~
chaz
Let's presume that Google in ~2010 believed that more personal services (like
Google Now today) are the future. That requires identification to be layered
onto everything they do, including search. But requiring a login for search
seems absurd and immediately seems creepy (even if the intent is innocent) and
would have been met with intense resistance.

It seems a far easier strategy to create a social service where identification
is a presumed requirement, and then sprinkle a bit of that across all of the
other services. By 2011, half a billion users had been trained by Facebook
that logging in with your real identity was the norm. After all, all of your
friends were doing it.

Thus, Google+ was born. It was the first time that all of Google made a
consolidated step toward identification across all of their services. It was a
rally point internally and externally, was easily understood, had a clear
product roadmap, and opened the door to all kinds of new, stickier products.

I think that the expectations of G+ being a Facebook killer were misguided.
Google would love to replace the FB News Feed, but I think it's already
achieved much of what it set out to do.

------
killion
Does it feel odd to anyone else that you click the "Request an invite" button
and it doesn't ask who you are? Also nowhere on the page does it show my
identity.

~~~
marknutter
Perhaps if you don't realize you're logged into gmail. I thought it was well
understood that being logged into gmail meant you were logged into all of
google's services?

~~~
krschultz
I am logged into 2 Gmail accounts at the moment, which one did it connect
with?

~~~
brandon272
You'll find out when you get an e-mail to one of the accounts.

------
NoPiece
I feel bad for the Apple maps team - trying to catch up to a fast moving
target.

~~~
gojomo
...and Apple Maps is trapped on only one platform (iOS - not even a web
gateway), so only receiving a relative trickle of usage-based feedback... and
Apple Maps perhaps only ever existed as a leverage chip against Google.

Apple Maps might need to ally with other Google rivals to get the
mindshare/critical-mass needed to have any competitive chance.

~~~
coob
Like Yelp… which they already do.

------
0x0
So I used to have MapsGL enabled, and now I got a popup saying "MapsGL is
going away". Well, then I clicked the "Classic" button and now I can't find
any way to re-enable MapsGL :(

~~~
untog
The WebGL version of maps is not this new version- presumably it was the early
work which led to it. So it's not surprising that they are phasing out the
'old' WebGL maps. They weren't that great, anyway.

~~~
0x0
I miss the nice 3d perspective building outlines :(

~~~
ihuman
It looks like the new Google Maps has them

------
542458
I'm curious to see how people react to how it adjusts to what you click. I can
see that leading to a lot of confusion or frustration among less tech-savvy
folks, although I'm sure Google has already user-tested to hell and back
again.

------
jonemo
I only saw the video, didn't try this yet, but one thing looks like it has the
potential to drive me insane: The search results list (and map view) changes
when I click one of the results!?

The way I usually browser through a list of results is by clicking each map
bubble and taking action based on the details that pop up (open a new tab,
call the place, refine my search, ignore the result, etc). This new version of
maps seems to infer from me clicking on a bubble, that I like the underlying
result. Which of course is not true because I clicked the bubble in order to
figure out if I like it. Anyone else think they have this backward?

------
grey-area
This new design looks really impressive, and neatly with the new iOS app
branding - Google's eye for design has definitely improved over the last few
years. I love the fact they've gone full screen on the map as that sidebar was
often awkward and most of the time ignored in my use of google maps. Love the
little popups with more info too. My one complaint on the iOS app they have is
that it's harder to access streetview, and I'm always opening the side panel
by mistake, so I hope they've focussed on the core features people like as
opposed to glitzy but less useful features like 3D support and tilting the
maps. When Apple switched maps I realised just how much thought has gone into
google maps at a subtle level - town names popping at the correct zoom level,
sizing and placement of labels, and choice of colouring, are all areas where
Apple could still learn quite a lot from the Google maps styling, and with
this new restyle they've moved on again.

Re the invites, I suppose when you get to the scale of Google you simply have
to limit uptake or the service will be swamped on the first day and everyone
will go away with a terrible impression. Better that they get the kinks out
first, and they must have decided that request an invite is the simplest way
to limit access to the beta while showing it to people who care about seeing
it.

I'm a little hesitant about one aspect of this though because it seems they've
decided to include adverts on the actual maps - to my mind a better way to do
this would have been for businesses which are already featured by the likes of
Zagat to be able to play for a nicer entry, with more images etc. Having paid
adverts on there seems a bit cheesy and a bit too close to digital billboards.

Combine this with Google's push to take over our digital lives, and it leaves
me with an uneasy feeling - like most of the major corporations (Facebook,
Apple, MS, Amazon), they want to control every aspect of your online life that
they can. Sometimes I wish software companies would just focus on getting a
niche just right, and not try to take over our entire life online, but it
seems that's just not the nature of large corporations, and so we have a
constant negotiation with them as to just how much of our life we're willing
to share.

------
markbao
I've always found Google Maps' _listings_ a bit lacking. For something that is
supposed to map the world, it still won't show me all the restaurants on a
main avenue in NYC[0]. It still doesn't pinpoint the right locations for some
places and for others it simply can't find them.

I think we're still far from the future of a 'one true map' that has it all,
unfortunately. I still don't trust Google Maps to return quality results with
a query like "restaurants near 14th st nyc"—which, from an idealistic
standpoint, I _should_ trust it with.

[0] <http://goo.gl/maps/gLyLi>

~~~
marquis
That should change, according to Zagat (owned by Google):
[http://blog.zagat.com/2013/05/zagat-helping-you-find-
excepti...](http://blog.zagat.com/2013/05/zagat-helping-you-find-
exceptional.html)

~~~
markbao
Yes, I hope so, but I'm not hopeful, because Zagat isn't as good as Yelp.

The biggest thing that Apple Maps has over Google Maps is their partnership
with Yelp. Yelp is arguably the best source of business information in cities
where it's available. It's up-to-date address-wise, lists pretty much every
restaurant and attraction, has hours for many of them, and even menus. Plus
decent reviews, and lots of them. Google and Zagat can't come anywhere close.

------
JuDue
I wish <http://www.mapbox.com/> was a little cheaper so it could be a viable
alternative for smaller startups.

Love Google Maps. Hate that they dominate this important space so heavily.

------
tyang
Dear Google Maps Team,

This is very helpful, thanks.

And the rest of us aren't looking for places to eat in the Mission using
public transit. (BTW, folks in the Mission skateboard, bike or walk.)

Anyhoo, some of us live in L.A. We drive something called cars, often on roads
called freeways.

We want to know if we have to make six lane changes from the carpool lane to
merge onto another freeway. Or if we can just stay in the carpool lane and
make one lane change to the left in a few minutes.

We also want to know how long our trip will take if we use the carpool lane
and FasTrak.

Oh, and give us something like Glympse.

Think of it as Latitude 2.0.

Or, better yet, think of it as a Google+ feature.

------
revelation
An invite? To test a new version of Google Maps?

This isn't Gmail and it's not a freaking social network. When will you learn
Google?

~~~
devindotcom
"How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds
ago." (louis ck)

------
heyitsnick
Tangent question: Does anyone have tips on making demo videos like the one
embedded here? Basically something like Camtasia, but with supports the fake-
perspective shots that are used in parts.

~~~
beering
Adobe After Effects? Adobe Premiere? I think fake perspectival effects are a
bit too specific of a feature to bundle into a generic screen recorder.

------
arrowgunz
Damn, another product deeply integrated with Google+.

------
w0utert
I'd love to see how the new interactive features actually work out, but for me
the video isn't playing on iPad :-/

~~~
criley
It's just an embedded youtube video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=THxJHcR1D2c)

~~~
w0utert
That's weird because I searched it on YouTube but it wasn't there before. Bit
too early I guess... ;-)

Not overly impressed by any of the new features though, looks like they just
pushed their recommendation engine more to the front and brushed up the UI map
rendering a bit, but that's about it. Still a lot better than any other map
service though.

~~~
spot
no the big change is getting rid of dividing the screen between a list of
search results and the map itself.

~~~
J3ff0
I'm not convinced that's a good thing in all cases -- a centralized list of
search results can be useful. For example if I search google maps for "seattle
register car" I get a couple results for actual auto registration places,
along with airport parking, car dealerships, etc... being able to quickly
filter out the junk results without mousing all over a map seems nice.

Honestly now that I think about it I have no idea what my "usual" google maps
usage is so it'll be interesting to see how much that matters!

------
charlieok
A couple use cases that I'm still waiting for on mapping applications:

\- I have a bike, and a pass that gets me on any local bus or light rail car.
Busses and light rail cars can carry people with bikes. What are the best two
or three route options from point A to B using some combination of bike routes
and public transit?

\- I am already following a route to get somewhere. Suddenly I decide I
want/need to stop at a (gas station | cafe | restaurant | other). Make it easy
to find such a place (optimizing for not taking me too far off my route, and
doing it soon if it's a long route), add it to the route, and don't forget the
original destination.

Google Maps on Android seemed farther along than iOS last I used it, but
neither really handled these use cases well, last I tried.

------
abruzzi
I hate to say it, but aside from a little bit of "social" stuff which I'll
never use, and a slightly revised UI, it doesn't really seem all that
different. I'd prefer fixes to the map data itself. I've been having pretty
severe routing issues in the last few weeks.

------
anxx
I have a tangential question: What screen capture software is this?

It's unlike any other I've seen, because the screen looks like it is viewed
from an upper left angle (like at 0:10). Really brings the video alive; I'd
love to use this software to make some video tutorials.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
The search sequences don’t show actual webpages. They are a combination of
HiDPI screenshots and vector animations, made in post-production software like
Adobe AfterEffects.

You can replicate the look by recording your tour in one of OS X’s HiDPI
modes[1] and then adjusting the perspective in a non-lineair editing suite
(such as Final Cut Pro) or post-production software (such as AfterEffects).

[1] [http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/12/enable-hidpi-mode-in-mac-
os-x...](http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/12/enable-hidpi-mode-in-mac-os-x-lion/)

------
tnuc
For the more technical people there is an I/O developer session on the future
of Google Maps. Starting sometime soon....

<https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/326458345>

------
tmzt
I can't figure out how to do the simplest thing with Google Maps: send a
location to my phone (running Android) in such a way that I'm guaranteed that
it will appear as the top choice when I click the Google Maps icon in
Applications.

I can "send to phone" (SMS) a link, email a link, or send to a car I don't own
or a GPS unit I haven't purchased however.

So I have meeting tomorrow, I want to be sure that when I click the Google
Maps icon the address I want to navigate to will be the first thing listed.

~~~
chaz
If I get directions to a destination on Maps desktop (web), then I can use
Android Google Maps, press the search button, and that same destination is the
first option. This only works for directions, not just looking up a location.

I do agree getting little things between devices still feels hard. Chrome to
Phone works for URLs and works one way, but I feel like things should be
seamless, instant, and universal. Still missing in every ecosystem.

------
evolve2k
Once upon a time a new google product being launch was really exciting and I'd
sign up however I could. Now I just feel a little scared as I watch new
services being offered that aren't really innovations just attempts to devour
other businesses. Every new release these days seems to either be
reimplementing features available elsewhere on the web by perfectly good sites
or a direct affront on my privacy.

------
belorn
Compared to the data at openstreetmap, does google map provide any exclusive
information beyond street view?

------
coverband
Bing Maps are quite aware of the zip code change that happened to my
neighborhood more than a year ago and can map my address quite well. Google
Maps are still pointing to a location that does not exist in real world
unfortunately. I'd have hoped that they fixed these things first.

~~~
mikeyouse
Have you submitted a 'Problem Report'? I had a similar issue that was fixed in
about 3 days after I submitted the report. They can only fix things that they
know about.

~~~
coverband
Submitted the first time I saw the problem last year, didn't bother doing it
again after that...

------
croisillon
Not sure if everybody sees the same example but the map I see with different
ways by car and by train is cute but obviously very wrong. A railway is rarely
straight and even less so in the middle of the Alps...

~~~
205guy
Yeah, I thought that was weird. I'd much prefer the transit being mapped out
on it's actual path, with symbols for stops. In the video it does show a cool
new feature where different transit options are compared in a timeline.

As an aside, the new look of the maps reminds me a lot of my beloved Michelin
maps. Google used to have zero terrain on the regular map, only forest/park
shading, but now they have a minimal amount, just like Michelin. It really
does help me "read" the landscape. A lot of the colors also seem to be
converging to Michelin standards.

------
jka
It's personal bias from my previous experience in travel -- but it's very
interesting to see the small (grayed out) 'flight' logo as one of the
navigation options in the top-left.

~~~
snogglethorpe
They're hoping it proves more popular for long overseas trips than the
previous "kayak" option...

------
julianozen
This feels like more of mobile software influences the desktop

------
UVB-76
This looks beautiful.

------
dougk16
Does anyone know if this includes Google Earth functionality being available
in any way without a plugin? IOW, just naked browser using WebGL?

------
jordhy
Looks like Foursquare is about to die.

------
bconway
Will there be a way to turn off personalization? It's not clear from the video
or the site.

------
allanberger
watch the livestream of the "google maps: into the future" session which is on
right now:

<https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/326458345>

------
zachgersh
Wait, does this mean that google maps just went back to beta again?

------
mtraven
I guess Don Draper was involved in the marketing.

------
washedup
The commercial made me want to vomit.

------
maeon3
You can code your own applications that interface with Google Earth as
illustrated with these interactive demos:

[https://developers.google.com/earth/documentation/demogaller...](https://developers.google.com/earth/documentation/demogallery)

Warning, "monster milktruck demo" and "flight simulator" will take about 4 to
8 hours of your free time. Not as addictive as most video games, but approach
with caution.

~~~
devindotcom
I was really hoping the milktruck would actually collide with structures, but
it just clips through them.

~~~
maeon3
I think there is a flag where you can turn it on. In the flight simulator you
can crash into buildings. Also, try the grand canyon with the monster
milktruck, set aside 5 hours for this.

~~~
epochwolf
> In the flight simulator you can crash into buildings.

Eh... not the best feature to be pointing out.

~~~
hnha
what do you mean? maeon3 was replying in the contact of clipping. buildings
are where that problem arises it a flight simulator like this.

