Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 30, 2008 by CyberNet.

Yesterday when I pulled up Google Maps, a site I frequently visit, Ryan looked over and right away noticed that the interface was different. My response was, “it is?” I stared at the sight for a good minute trying to figure out what was different and finally Ryan pointed out the changes. Google did in fact give Maps a makeover, but our guess is that some of you won’t even notice.

Here’s what’s different:

According to the Lat Long Blog, their goal was “less is more” which helps explain why they went from three tabs under the search box displaying “search the map,” “find businesses,” and “get directions,” to no tabs under the search box. Previously they had orange as one of their main colors, now it’s blue.

For those of you looking for where you’d get directions, it’s now moved right below the “Google Maps” logo in the blue bar that runs across the screen. Also keep in mind that you can get directions simply by using the search bar. Just enter: (starting location) to (ending location) in the search bar and Google will return step-by-step directions with an estimated time it will take to get from your starting location to your ending location.

One minor complaint we have with these changes is that if you are planning a vacation and you have multiple points along the trip (also called waypoints), you can’t reorder any of those waypoints. For example, if you decided you wanted to add a stop to your trip, you can add a waypoint, but it automatically puts it at the bottom of your list of stops and there’s no way to move it anywhere in the middle.

Overall, once I noticed the changes I thought they looked nice. They are subtle, so there is a chance that you may not even notice, especially if you don’t use Google Maps regularly.

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