5 ms·

> Why won't you show me the street name? I've been running into this a lot lately. No matter how much I zoom -- no street name. This is Mapping 101.

DoingIsLearning 3y ago
No, mapping 101 is showing me a scale. Without a scale it is a drawing not a map. A for everyone telling me I can enable it always in settings, I will answer that it still gets removed when you start navigation with 'Directions'. But I still agree street omission is pretty bad.
- function_seven 3y ago
  You just reminded me of my own mapping annoyance. Apple Maps, while navigating, will keep zooming the map as I approach my destination. The scale keeps changing! For a lot of areas, this makes it possible to glance at the map, see that my dot is 32 millimeters away from the destination, drive for a bit, glance again… still 32 mm away. The same unit length on my screen represents 3 miles or 300 feet. I wish there was some visual indication of the scale, other than a tiny line in the bottom right corner.
- feintruled 3y ago
  Something that catches me out when driving is the scale adjusting for speed. It makes sense, but a junction that looks quite close suddenly starts moving further away from you as you slow down for it and the maps zooms in. It's an odd UI quirk.
walthamstow 3y ago
It's really bad in London. Instead of telling you the road is called Oxford Street (quite a famous road!) it shows instead the road number, A40, which is not known by 95% of the local population, nor by 100% of visitors.
- caleb-allen 3y ago
  I've had this exact problem before. Extremely frustrating!
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  A population of 9 million but big tech's allergy to scaling customer support means they don't pay a local person to adjust things for local expectations. But why would they? We have to use it anyway.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    They have a large office in London, so their own staff put up with it. I once met a Googler who had previously worked on maps. I made a few grumbles (railway lines at the time were almost invisible, but very useful for orienting yourself when you exit a station, gardens were grey yet parks were green, "Transit" only shows the London Underground so it misses most of the local rail travel routes in South London, etc). He agreed with everything, but said the staff working on Maps were all in California and wouldn't care, if they could even be made to understand the issues.
    - mnw21cam 3y ago
      I remember when Google changed the colours of roads, and I filed a bug report. Motorways are blue darnit.
    - aikinai 3y ago
      Actually the teams that would implement those fixes are not really in California (rather Seattle, Sydney, Tokyo, among others), but the problem is more the diffusion of responsibility and lack of ownership. Teams all have different metrics they're trying to drive or features they're focused on, but no one is responsible for the overall quality and user experience of "Google Maps" as a whole. All of the things you mentioned have internal bugs, pitch decks, or maybe even patches pushed by individuals or whole teams. Likely even directors or VPs agree. But the organizational friction is massive and it's very hard to ship anything unless it's crystal clear that it is going to directly move a metric that is a focus for this year. And even then, if launching this feature touches multiple divisions, it still might not happen just because of the massive coordination effort. That said, the green coloring was probably fixed in 2020. Transit has had a lot of work in the past five years, so maybe a chance London overground rail is fixed? The transit line rendering is still terrible, so you should probably use Apple Maps for that—theirs is beautiful.
ce4 3y ago
Not only that, but also city and village-names (especiqlly when the map is in directions-mode). Total bollocks for a maps app.
agumonkey 3y ago
Sometimes the decision is very complicated and lazy.. it can show, or not, change angle a bit and it comes back.. or comes back after 5 seconds.
cobbaut 3y ago
>> Why won't you show me the street name? >I've been running into this a lot lately. No matter how much I zoom -- no street name. This is Mapping 101. Google Maps does this all over Belgium, showing hotels and restaurants and shops and never the street name. Very frustrating indeed. I use OSM for street names, because it just works.
perryizgr8 3y ago
Another stupid thing they've done is to use local language for street and place names. Why the hell even have a phone language then? Just switch everything over to whatever language people are speaking in my immediate vicinity then! There is a reason I have chosen English as the language of my phone, because that's what I can read properly.
- seb1204 3y ago
  Not sure if I understand your point. If you're in Spain you want to see Street names written in Kanji or Greek? Or do you want the street name translated to your phone language?
  - perryizgr8 3y ago
    I want the names as they would appear in the language I can read, in my case that is English. Otherwise it is literally useless for me to show the names at all.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Do you mean the script/alphabet, or the language? At some point I noticed someone had "helpfully" translated some concert venue names in Copenhagen into English, so Krudtønden became "The Powder Keg", etc. That's not useful, as locals might well not understand what it means if you ask directions or search for a website. It's on Østerfælled Torv, would you have that read as Eastern Commons Market? Places with other alphabets seem to vary. Greece shows me only Latin transliterations, but Syria shows me both Latin and Arabic in many cases, which is useful — I can read one, and match the shape of the letters for the other.
throwawaylinux 3y ago
Not furnishing your users with knowledge that could reduce their reliance on your service is Marketing 101. Google maps does not want help people gain awareness of their surroundings or improve their navigation skills. It wants users to depend on Google maps.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
It's been like that for a frustratingly long time. I've tried Open Street Map, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard (skittles). I think I'm going to have to try again, OSM fits my ideology better.

DoingIsLearning 3y ago

No, mapping 101 is showing me a scale. Without a scale it is a drawing not a map. A for everyone telling me I can enable it always in settings, I will answer that it still gets removed when you start navigation with 'Directions'. But I still agree street omission is pretty bad.

function_seven 3y ago
You just reminded me of my own mapping annoyance. Apple Maps, while navigating, will keep zooming the map as I approach my destination. The scale keeps changing! For a lot of areas, this makes it possible to glance at the map, see that my dot is 32 millimeters away from the destination, drive for a bit, glance again… still 32 mm away. The same unit length on my screen represents 3 miles or 300 feet. I wish there was some visual indication of the scale, other than a tiny line in the bottom right corner.
feintruled 3y ago
Something that catches me out when driving is the scale adjusting for speed. It makes sense, but a junction that looks quite close suddenly starts moving further away from you as you slow down for it and the maps zooms in. It's an odd UI quirk.

walthamstow 3y ago

It's really bad in London. Instead of telling you the road is called Oxford Street (quite a famous road!) it shows instead the road number, A40, which is not known by 95% of the local population, nor by 100% of visitors.

caleb-allen 3y ago
I've had this exact problem before. Extremely frustrating!
devnullbrain 3y ago
A population of 9 million but big tech's allergy to scaling customer support means they don't pay a local person to adjust things for local expectations. But why would they? We have to use it anyway.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  They have a large office in London, so their own staff put up with it. I once met a Googler who had previously worked on maps. I made a few grumbles (railway lines at the time were almost invisible, but very useful for orienting yourself when you exit a station, gardens were grey yet parks were green, "Transit" only shows the London Underground so it misses most of the local rail travel routes in South London, etc). He agreed with everything, but said the staff working on Maps were all in California and wouldn't care, if they could even be made to understand the issues.
  - mnw21cam 3y ago
    I remember when Google changed the colours of roads, and I filed a bug report. Motorways are blue darnit.
  - aikinai 3y ago
    Actually the teams that would implement those fixes are not really in California (rather Seattle, Sydney, Tokyo, among others), but the problem is more the diffusion of responsibility and lack of ownership. Teams all have different metrics they're trying to drive or features they're focused on, but no one is responsible for the overall quality and user experience of "Google Maps" as a whole. All of the things you mentioned have internal bugs, pitch decks, or maybe even patches pushed by individuals or whole teams. Likely even directors or VPs agree. But the organizational friction is massive and it's very hard to ship anything unless it's crystal clear that it is going to directly move a metric that is a focus for this year. And even then, if launching this feature touches multiple divisions, it still might not happen just because of the massive coordination effort. That said, the green coloring was probably fixed in 2020. Transit has had a lot of work in the past five years, so maybe a chance London overground rail is fixed? The transit line rendering is still terrible, so you should probably use Apple Maps for that—theirs is beautiful.

ce4 3y ago

Not only that, but also city and village-names (especiqlly when the map is in directions-mode). Total bollocks for a maps app.

agumonkey 3y ago

Sometimes the decision is very complicated and lazy.. it can show, or not, change angle a bit and it comes back.. or comes back after 5 seconds.

cobbaut 3y ago

>> Why won't you show me the street name? >I've been running into this a lot lately. No matter how much I zoom -- no street name. This is Mapping 101. Google Maps does this all over Belgium, showing hotels and restaurants and shops and never the street name. Very frustrating indeed. I use OSM for street names, because it just works.

perryizgr8 3y ago

Another stupid thing they've done is to use local language for street and place names. Why the hell even have a phone language then? Just switch everything over to whatever language people are speaking in my immediate vicinity then! There is a reason I have chosen English as the language of my phone, because that's what I can read properly.

seb1204 3y ago
Not sure if I understand your point. If you're in Spain you want to see Street names written in Kanji or Greek? Or do you want the street name translated to your phone language?
- perryizgr8 3y ago
  I want the names as they would appear in the language I can read, in my case that is English. Otherwise it is literally useless for me to show the names at all.
Symbiote 3y ago
Do you mean the script/alphabet, or the language? At some point I noticed someone had "helpfully" translated some concert venue names in Copenhagen into English, so Krudtønden became "The Powder Keg", etc. That's not useful, as locals might well not understand what it means if you ask directions or search for a website. It's on Østerfælled Torv, would you have that read as Eastern Commons Market? Places with other alphabets seem to vary. Greece shows me only Latin transliterations, but Syria shows me both Latin and Arabic in many cases, which is useful — I can read one, and match the shape of the letters for the other.

throwawaylinux 3y ago

Not furnishing your users with knowledge that could reduce their reliance on your service is Marketing 101. Google maps does not want help people gain awareness of their surroundings or improve their navigation skills. It wants users to depend on Google maps.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

It's been like that for a frustratingly long time. I've tried Open Street Map, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard (skittles). I think I'm going to have to try again, OSM fits my ideology better.