Looks like Google engineers have been busy adding some interesting features to how directional maps are served up. Besides the usual car, transit, and walking routes, there is now a route for bikes which takes you between cities on surface streets. A good feature to have in bike friendly neighborhoods like Portland, Minneapolis, or Boulder.
The addition of clickable icons on a street map is nice to have. If I had to guess, I'd say that the companies, parks, bus stops that appear on the map are from existing data points that users either put in themselves (like adding a company's office or HQ to the map) or Google was able to bulk upload to their data universe. The fantastic feature here is being able to pinpoint a company's location within a complex of buildings, like at a mall. The example below is of the Bellevue Square Mall in Bellevue WA.
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| 2013-06-23, Bellevue Square Mall Snapshot |
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| 2013-06-23, a pretty clean list of driving suggestions |
The biggest quirk I can see is when the map engine tries to give a solution to a transit route that makes no sense. If you don't start with a transit center as a starting point, you could get transit routes that take up to 8 hours. The custom date/time setting for a future route is a bit clunkier than what was there before with a separate popup for it. Transit to Everett is not an option with wait times and in-transit time being up to 1.5 hours each way; who has that kind of luxury? It is still faster by fossil-fuel-burning car, though mostly because it would be a reverse traffic commute.
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Ugh. Most of the time, you see, is from walking!
I am not going to walk 2.8 miles a day when it is
25 degrees out and sleeting. |
Electric Mirror, used in this example, is a topic for a different post. The company manufactures Vive(tm), which is a Bluetooth-enabled TV mirror (a mirror when not in use, a television that fits in the space of a mirror; how neat is that??) Their global HQ is in Everett and I am just using their location in this example.
I wonder if hills are taken into consideration for walking directions. The walking route is impractical in this scenario.
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| 2013-06-23, Walking directions from Bothell to Everett |
