Google Maps web mapping change

[Brenley Corner]

It may just be on my setup but Google seem to have updated their mapping style when accessing through the web. Obviously change can be subjective but whilst I did like the old mapping this seems a touch clearer.

Any thoughts?

[KeithW]

It may just be on my setup but Google seem to have updated their mapping style when accessing through the web. Obviously change can be subjective but whilst I did like the old mapping this seems a touch clearer.

Any thoughts?

Yes I spotted this last night, I agree it makes major routes standout but I dislike the way railways are depicted, OpenStreetMap is far clearer in my opinion.

[Helvellyn]

Hideous. The old one wasn't great, but this is a muddy, depressing-looking mess. Motorways are even harder to distinguish than before, they're not even labelled (although since every other road is I assume that's a bug rather than by design).

edit: I'm now getting motorway labels, weird.

[Brenley Corner]

What I have noticed is that when you zoom right in on a motorway, it sometimes shows the lanes. I was looking at the A16 near Calais (as a result of another thread) when I noticed it.

[nowster]

♫ I've got the Google Maps has changed again blues.

[FosseWay]

"Less bad" is my verdict.

The previous version was more or less unusable because you simply couldn't see the difference between road and not-road unless you zoomed right in, never mind the nuances of various land cover symbols. The new one is better in that regard but as Helvellyn says, it doesn't look great, and as others have said, there seems just to be a symbol for "road", whether it's a goat track or the M25.

I nearly always use GM with the satellite view enabled. This is the main advantage of Google over OSM; if you want a basic map view, OSM is far better.

[danfw194]

Pretty sure this new iteration appeared briefly a few months back, before it quickly reverted to the 'old' style. Guessing they had some bugs to iron out. Not a fan of the traffic overlay on this new version.

[DB617]

I still don't like how it differentiates roads of vastly different classes. The A38 Gloucester Road North (near Aztec West) and the M4/M5 should not be the same colour.

But I'm weird. I used to use Waze editor mode which had purple, green, blue, yellow and white roads, because I loved the 'order' of the differentiated routes and the fact it was at the time the only app which allowed one to identify erroneous single track road prioritisation before the point of no return - which was quite useful when I was a Waze editor living in a county where the only non-single track route had been intermittently closed for works.

[Helvellyn]

I nearly always use GM with the satellite view enabled. This is the main advantage of Google over OSM; if you want a basic map view, OSM is far better.

I do think Google does a better job at selecting what to display at different zoom levels than OSM, OSM feels a bit too cluttered to me when zoomed out (and it doesn't make motorways blue either!) Still don't think OS map colours have been close to beaten by anything (although didn't Google pretty much match them once upon a time?)

[SJobson]

Pretty sure this new iteration appeared briefly a few months back, before it quickly reverted to the 'old' style. Guessing they had some bugs to iron out. Not a fan of the traffic overlay on this new version.

It appeared on my everyday PC a few months ago and I couldn't revert. This week it has appeared on my phone too, and thus on Carplay. The colours are a bit bright, particularly the green for free-flowing traffic - that ought to be more subtle because it has no need to draw your attention. I had already been sticking to aerial photos rather than standard Google Maps in the car due to the roads being almost invisible; now the darker green background to the road labels and direction arrows disappears into the general green and pleasant image which means your eyes have to hunt for it instead of seeing it straight away.

Overall I don't think the UI change is for the better, particularly in Carplay, so I wonder if it will be tweaked again fairly quickly?

[FosseWay]

I nearly always use GM with the satellite view enabled. This is the main advantage of Google over OSM; if you want a basic map view, OSM is far better.

I do think Google does a better job at selecting what to display at different zoom levels than OSM, OSM feels a bit too cluttered to me when zoomed out (and it doesn't make motorways blue either!) Still don't think OS map colours have been close to beaten by anything (although didn't Google pretty much match them once upon a time?)

The clutteredness doesn't bother me especially; I guess I just filter out whatever information isn't needed for my current purpose. I prefer OSM mainly because it shows non-motoring infrastructure better, especially footpaths that don't just follow a road alongside. My biggest gripe with OSM is that the text (street names etc.) stays in a minuscule size however much you zoom in. Google is better in this regard, but is *very* selective about what it will give names to at all, and adds them/takes them away apparently at random between zoom levels.

Agree with your comment on OS mapping - not just colours, but in general in the UK context. Whenever I'm in the UK I buy a month's subscription to the OS app to get instant 1:25 000 coverage of wherever I am.

[Big L]

I noticed it a couple of days ago. It seems clearer to me.

[DB617]

I wonder if the new colour scheme is worse/better for people with different flavours of colour blindness? Surely it would not have hurt to have the legacy basemap as an option. Even Bing Maps manages to have variable basemaps.

[belgarion]

We noticed it a few months back, my mates phone had the new colours, mine didn't even though both Android (mines a newer model).

But now its everywhere, even on Android Auto, still getting used to the new colours but it does seem clearer.

Vince

[Rob590]

While generally I quite like the look and colours, the major limitation is the lack of distinction between road types.

I scrolled to a few cities that I don't know at all - Lyon in France, Bern in Swtizerland, Graz in Austria - and there was no easy way of telling apart the motorways from the urban dual carriageways, certainly when scrolled out at a city level.

Perhaps they don't need to show so much difference when most people use the maps scrolling in and out, but for me it would certainly be stronger with a clearer distinction.

[Herned]

It's odd. The motorways showing exactly the same as the lowest quality A road is just bizarre. Elsewhere in Europe, high quality roads which aren't motorways are less prominent than normal main roads. You would think Google has enough information to know which roads are important and which aren't

But then it's an advertising platform disguised as a map

[Nader]

I wonder if the new colour scheme is worse/better for people with different flavours of colour blindness? Surely it would not have hurt to have the legacy basemap as an option. Even Bing Maps manages to have variable basemaps.

For me (red-green colourblind), each new iteration seems to get harder to distinguish

[jervi]

I don't like the change, in general I don't like the way google maps displays information for the past 8 or so years.
Now whilst zoomed out it is impossible to identify a railway, as it looks the same as a minor road.

Roads all being the same colour isn't great either - I guess for most people this isn't an issue because they let Google choose their route, but for those who wish to work out the route for themselves and not be dependant on technology for basic tasks it makes it harder.

Also an issue I've had with Google Maps forever is that within a national park or AONB, it is not possible to identify areas of woodland, unlike areas which are not.

[ravenbluemoon]

But then it's an advertising platform disguised as a map

Agree. It's near impossible to pan around town and city centres on a laptop as you almost always end up clicking on one the (usually) sponsored locations. As for the new colouring on the maps - yuck. Unless I need aerial mapping or street view, I'll stick with OSM/SABRE Maps.

[nowster]

I nearly always use GM with the satellite view enabled. This is the main advantage of Google over OSM; if you want a basic map view, OSM is far better.

I do think Google does a better job at selecting what to display at different zoom levels than OSM, OSM feels a bit too cluttered to me when zoomed out (and it doesn't make motorways blue either!) Still don't think OS map colours have been close to beaten by anything (although didn't Google pretty much match them once upon a time?)

OSM used to make motorways blue. The project started in the UK. Then when it became an international project there was pressure to make it uniform across the world. I'm sure with the appropriate settings in the renderer (Mapnik) someone could make motorways blue again, but then they'd have to host the map tiles...

Even Google Maps used to colour UK motorways blue in the early days.