But as I type this, I realized Google is primarily an ad business and whatever will drive that revenue will get pushed further. Oh well.

One particular change before I remembered was when they reduced the contrast (and amount of details) when zoomed out, which I hated at the time, but now can't go back. It makes finding neighborhoods and such much easier. It looks like the author found the opposite, I guess it's just something very subjective.

(The author provided a comparison between various previous versions at the end (sans the newest), and I genuinely can't say the older ones were better, even the "before 2018" ones.)

But I do agree this newest one is bad, mainly due to the color choice of the roads. I really like GMap's white/yellow roads.

Or shortcuts that might be interesting in a computer game, how the RTS units select their path, but hardly so when driving through a medieval village, instead of the somehow longer circular road that everyone should use.

I found the new NY map refreshing because of its higher contrast between the streets and city blocks. Feels like it's easier to get a handle on what's on the screen. Granted, whenever a product gives me the opportunity to opt for increased contrast, I usually go for it.

The updates to roads and streets? Not so much. There is way too much emphasis on streets, distracting you from seeing the labeled places. The streets and highways shouldn't be a city's prominent showcase, the landmarks should.

That second-to-last image of Chicago streets around The Art Institute of Chicago show the lack of contrast between the green of a street and the green of the park - it all just blends in. It was better before, but just barely.

Every image is captioned with “See! Look how similar it is” but I have nothing to compare it to.

Here in the US, Apple has surpassed Google and now has a 2-3 year lead, in my opinion (I travel quite a lot, and use both products interchangeably).

They should add an option "focus on roads" "focus on landscape". Although to be realistic focus on roads is probably way more common, and that appears to be the new design - the roads really stand out.

Just maps?

The only reason for me not to use Apple Maps (in the US) is that they are far behind GMaps in POI data.

Broadway is completely invisible in the "old" map, but visible on the "new" map.

But I guess the more usable contrast makes the Madame Tussauds label slightly harder to read?

I left on Google Maps out of curiosity and indeed, it started to show directions which lead to poor dirty roads where my car would barely fit trough.

One would think that Google has some data about much less cars passing through that road than the paved one and drive some conclusion out of it, as I hardly think anyone would use those roads apart from a few locals who are living there. Especially in an area which is filled with tourists.

Also, Google Maps also often suggests much less efficients routes in my local area where I definitely know that there's a route which not shorter, but still much faster.

It's crazy, really. I once got routed into a tractor path that was literally a dry creek bed for >2 kms (covered with large, pointy rocks and all). But yeah, it was quicker by 5' than the paved road so it was the top route. Longest 20' of my driving life.

I would seriously pay extra for an option of "ignore unpaved roads" or even better "don't suggest slower roads if the route is shorter than X%"

I found out several years ago that I have some form of color blindness - amusingly enough during a design review for a map we were designing. I had the exact same problem, with everything bleeding together in an indistinguishable mass, and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads when I asked how we could possibly ship something so unusable with no contrast.

I suspect there is something similar going on here. To me, the foreground text and background roads are nearly identical in hue and saturation. Is it high contrast to other people? The map I struggled with years ago was using two colors with similar saturation but different hues (a purple and a green/yellow), so I had to push to make sure that "high contrast" meant a difference in both hue AND saturation.

Shipping a couple map-related products has given me a real appreciation for how differently users can experience visual layouts. For one thing, technical people generally like maps a LOT more than the general population does, to the point that we take it for granted that it's the ideal way of presenting anything with a position component.

Quite a lot of people get overwhelmed by maps - they basically shut down and can't figure out the UI at all. Looking at the new version gave me that panicked feeling that I hear those users talk about.

For a product meant to be used outdoors, Maps does an awful job at being readable.