The Future Of Google Maps. You’ll Never Be Lost Again

Interesting article about how Google Maps is changing the way we behave.

I must admit I don’t have sat nav because I want to retain my navigation skills, but I love the way Google Maps means I can go somewhere new and once I’m there, have no problem finding the precise location I’m looking for…

Dunno but os maps are harder to find

Used to be you could rock up in a.n area and go to local paper shop / news agents and get the relevent map for the area

Now its just not worth the risk now and you go take a trip to a book sellers before you go to the area as ive been burnt a couple times in recent years …. And its something i did alot only maybe only 8/9 years ago before os navigation sat navs and smart phones were common place.

Not sure why that is peculiar to Google Maps though – rather than Bing, Yahoo, OpenStreetMap etc etc

Its ubisqui ubiquitess ubqieut popularity.

Google maps are awesome. Took my workmate to have his van serviced today and put the postcode into google maps. Then zoomed in and found the name of the dealer on the map, clicked on it and up came the phone number, tapped it and my phone rang it.

I must admit I don’t have sat nav because I want to retain my navigation
skills

I almost always use satnav. when I don’t though, I can’t saythat I ever notice any loss of skills…

Google maps is great, best thing on the internet.
However, they are a suppliment to maps. I never totally trust anything electronic (I have two reoad atlases and one satnav in the van, I think that’s a nice balaance)
For finding my way around an unfamilar urban environment it is pretty much indespensible nowadays, although I do have some A2Zs too. However, once you leave the road network they really become a little useless. And we should all still know how to use a map properly, they never break down.

they do when they blow away in the wind 🙂

Graham S….its the way the Google search engine is integrated into Google Maps, Google Navigation etc….its superb, its what has kept me on Android every time i’ve been tempted by the thought of an iPhone….hard to explain without somebody spending some time with an Android handset and Google’s ecosystem but it just has everything….that sounds like hyperbole but Google’s products at the moment are superb.

Apple has iTunes (which is very good) but Google has everything else worth having on a smartphone, there’s a reason Google maps is the top app in the Apple appstore….on Android its even better, basically switch on GPS and use Google search to go anywhere, find anything, view points of interest, earth, streetview etc etc, all within the same app, Google Now even learns your daily routine, your commute, gives real time traffic info without asking/searching for it….the first time it popped up as a notification on my phone i wondered what the hell was going on and how on earth it knew that, bit freaky initially but superb nonetheless….i could quite happily ditch a conventional computer now and use a Chromebook….Google are that good at the moment.

TheartistformerlyknownasSTR….thats exactly what i’m talking about, for people not on Android its hard for them to understand but Google’s products running on their own OS is just awesome to use, Apple likes to throw around the word ‘intuitive’ but they havent got a clue and your example is a small but excellent everyday example of how one function seamlessly links into the next until you get the information you need/want without having to chop and change between different apps.

I don’t understand – on my iPhone I can type a postcode into Maps, zoom in and find a business, tap on it and get the phone number, and tap the number to dial.

What bit does Google do better?

I’ll be teaching my kids how to use os maps. It’s an extremely important thing to me. Before a drive to a new place I always do a brief Google.map search so at least I have a rough idea if satnav packs in. But satnav has saved me so much wasted time and frustration it’s worth it’s weight in gold

You must live in part of the country apple maps has sorted ben

Apple maps is **** shite , it doesnt even know where it is if i tell it where it is

Purposefully didnt go ios6 till google brought out google map app.

Far far far superior to apple maps

I use it at work for surveying new sites. We even draw the new building ( on sketch up) and place it on the map it has really changed our business and means that we don’t always need to visit site which is a drag.

Plus, the really cool thing I can do in Maps is the 3D rotation thing – being able to drag and rotate a building or landscape is amazing…

Useless but quirky/nice little feature is that when using navigation and you reach your destination – up pops a Streetview pic.

Deviant: yep fair enough. I’m on iPhone so I’m not deep in the Google Ecosystem as you say.

I agree Google Maps is a good app (waaaaaay better than the Apple Maps) but I use lots of others too: e.g. Waze gives me live traffic data from other Wazers in my area + sat nav; BikeHub/CycleStreets use OpenCycleMap maps to navigate on the bike (which Google Maps does very badly); MotionX also uses OSM/OCM maps to navigate off-road and lets me load entire cities worth of map for offline use.

I don’t understand – on my iPhone I can type a postcode into Maps, zoom in and find a business, tap on it and get the phone number, and tap the number to dial.

Apple Maps app has chuff all points of interest to search though.
Try looking for something non-specific like “cafe” or “restaurant” and you get a couple of results, versus hundreds in Google.

I like Bing Maps for the integrated OS Map view, but other than that it’s Google Maps every time 🙂

I tend to pick my eating places a bit more carefully than “oh, look, a food icon on the map” 🙂

Even Apple accept their maps are bobbins (allegedly)….

It’s a great service/ app, but not too good offline, so I will always use paper maps or their digitised versions as well.

Aye. It’s handy to be able to click on the icon and it pop up a few reviews.

Which map app would tell me the nearest place to buy skinny jeans if I arrived in a town having forgotten mine?

This one

Aye. It’s handy to be able to click on the icon and it pop up a few reviews

Just like you can in Apple Maps?

My gf has a Nexus 4 – I get this kind of stuff all the time 🙂

bencooper » I tend to pick my eating places a bit more carefully than “oh, look, a food icon on the map”

Course you do. Ridiculous that someone might just want to find somewhere nearby for lunch or a cup of tea without extensive checking of Food Reviews.

Okay. Try “bike shop” then. Google lists more than Apple near me – plus they actually exist!

I like Apple Maps – it’s a decent design but it is let down very badly by very poor data. Which is a shame as Google needs competition!

It must be tough for some to use google maps though. Being run by free-marketeers/capitalists (spit) and not paying their taxes must make people seethe. I hope they have the conviction to boycott their products! 😉 Bon nuit!

Someone’s been sipping on the sherry this evening.

Just got another Android phone, put my details in and as if by magic – all my g-mail contacts, Facebook contacts etc automatically synced. B/days pulled from FB into my calendar, gallery full of photo’s l ‘d previously put on FB, Amazon MP3 downloads all queued ready to play or be d/l’ed onto my new device. I even went onto Google Maps and it had all my previous searches saved from my old phone. Google Now learning my preferences and giving me relevant info. Google/Android just works – this was all handwritten by the way with a stylus on my phone…..

On the first point technology has always changed the world and people going back as far as wheels and fire.

As for the google ecosystem
Google Now
Once it learns you it can give departure times should pick up flight bookings in email and give you departure times, live traffic on your commute weather at location and destination…

Scary but fun 🙂

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – Member
Just got another Android phone, put my details in and as if by magic – all my g-mail contacts, Facebook contacts etc automatically synced. B/days pulled from FB into my calendar, gallery full of photo’s l ‘d previously put on FB, Amazon MP3 downloads all queued ready to play or be d/l’ed onto my new device. I even went onto Google Maps and it had all my previous searches saved from my old phone. Google Now learning my preferences and giving me relevant info. Google/Android just works – this was all handwritten by the way with a stylus on my phone…..

That’s funny, my phone does all that, and I don’t have to piddle about with a stupid little stylus, I gave that up seven years or so ago when I updated my crappy XDA Mini, with its equally crappy Windows Mobile OS. The only reason I want a good, fine-tip stylus is for painting and sketching, writing brief notes, and detailed photo-retouching.
I don’t know, but I’m guessing Windows Phone 8 does it as well…

CountZero, did you miss that he’s using the stylus with handwriting recognition? He doesn’t “have to piddle about” with it, he’s choosing it as a better input method than keyboard.

and I don’t have to piddle about with a stupid little stylus, I gave that up seven years or so ago when I updated my crappy XDA Mini,

STW Shocker missing that technology has moved on…

seen the stylus in action and it really adds another dimension to the phone, precise document annotation and reviewing, note taking and much more is intuitive and simple.

Had it come from the Fruit Factory it would be the MOST AMAZING THING IN THE WORLD, if they ever implement one (like admitting 7″ tablets are actually OK) they will declare they invented it 🙂

As far as Apple Maps are concerned, it’s really a Beta, and Apple should have labeled it so. Google Maps are NOT perfect; I only have to look at my town centre to see businesses either in the wrong place, non-existent, or shut down or moved years ago. Google maps are nearly always eight or nine years out of date.
Given a bit of time, the Apple Maps database will improve immeasurably, as these things always do.
I use Google and Apple Maps, but for proper navigation I use CoPilot Live, because I cannot put any trust in a navigation system that requires cellular network access to function, ie an online mapping database. And I have OS 1:50k maps on my phone and pad for the entire UK, as well, with 1:25k for areas I spend time in.

If I’m going somewhere, I’ll look on a map. Always will. The difference is, I’ll look on googlemaps nowadays. I’ll use satellite to get landmarks and turning points. I’ll take my smartphone with me just in case I get lost.

We went to view two houses tonight. I looked on googlemaps for both and found my way to both without getting my phone out but it was there, as a back up.

Fricking awesome technology.

I’ve also downloaded the whole of Tasmania from google maps to make available offline. Like printing but less paper 🙂 Even if it can’t do the nav it knows where I am and I can do the rest.

seen the stylus in action and it really adds another dimension to the phone, precise document annotation and reviewing, note taking and much more is intuitive and simple

While that’s true, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, the stylus only works on one model of Samsung phone, and then only with certain limited apps.
Apple, when they introduce something, tend to improve on what’s already there. When the stylus they’re reputedly working on finally comes out, it’ll almost certainly work not just across the whole range of devices, but across most apps, where appropriate. And I would also reckon it’ll work with the trackpad, turning it into a small graphics tablet.
Steve Jobs was famously totally anti-stylus, because its far too limited for daily use, and most styli are like using crayons. For painting, they’re fine, just ask David Hockney.
7″ tablets are fine, as the iPad Mini has proved, provided they’re not a 16:9 ratio. You seem to forget, when the iPad was just rumoured, all the experts said it would be pointless, it wouldn’t sell, nobody had a use for it, yada, yada, yada.
Then, when it did appear, and sold millions, everybody rushed to make their own copies, because there was NO tablet market before the iPad.
Apple didn’t invent it, like they didn’t invent portable MP3 players, or mobile phones, but what they did do was create devices that were well-designed, and remarkably easy to use. With an ecosystem to back them up.
All the ‘experts’ also said a 7″ iPad wouldn’t sell, nobody wanted it or needed it, or had a use for it, etc, etc, etc.
As soon as it came out, it proceeded to sell millions, far more than all the competition.
I wonder why that could possibly be?
And don’t use the word ‘sheeple’ you’ll just make yourself look stupid.

FTFY

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFAjfUT8wZI[/video]

I’ve also downloaded the whole of Tasmania from google maps to make available offline.

*sniggers*

There’s lots of maps of Tasmania to be downloaded on the internet, and I very much doubt any smartphone is big enough to store them all 😉

*sniggers*

There’s lots of maps of Tasmania to be downloaded on the internet, and I very much doubt any smartphone is big enough to store them all

reading and comprehension test

I’ve also downloaded the whole of Tasmania from google maps to make available offline.

Unless google maps has other maps to download I’ve Downloaded all the maps from google maps. Ie all of google maps of Tasmania there is plenty of room. If I run out I’ll buy another phone pop a bigger sd card in it.

and the quote CZ is missing

Apple’s done extensive user-testing on touch interfaces over many years, and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps.

S Jobs