I launched Google Maps for mobile in 2005. In 2006, Eric Schmidt was worried that Yahoo Go was a killer app. My claim that Google Maps was the real killer app fell on deaf ears. :)
This is a total non sequitor, but huh, your last comment on this account was in 2012. Do you use others, or just only speak when you feel you have something incredibly cool (which this tidbit certainly is!) to add?
That's what I remember about it too. It was such a drastic improvement over the old MapQuest site where you'd have to click arrows around the edges of the map and wait for it to load to scroll around the map. I was immediately sold on it (even though I was still just printing out directions to take with me in the car).
Why not? How do you define "killer app"? Maps is one of my very highest used apps, alongside chat/text/email. I'd say it's more revolutionary than all of those, because chat/text/email were just mobile versions of apps perfected on desktop, but a mobile map app shows you exactly where you are, which changes everything. I've traveled internationally both in the pre- and post- smartphone era, and let me tell you, travel is way easier now.
It really is something. If you've never seen it, switch to satellite and start scrolling out. That's realtime cloud information that appears and as you keep going you get realtime night/day location rendering (complete with artificial lighting) and then realtime locations for all the major bodies in our solar system (which you can then hop over too and take a look at) (Edit: Ok, maybe this isn't locations of the bodies but you can still hop over to them and look around. The earth/sun location seems right though). Everyone I show this to has never seen it but the Google engineers that work on this stuff clearly care about what they are putting out.
I stopped using Google Maps on the desktop a while back because it would kill a octo-core AMD system with 12GB of RAM in Chrome. Bing Maps might not be better as a map, but the best map is the one that loads and lets you scroll, right?
I switch to Apple Maps on mobile when Google stopped letting me search for directions without signing in.
Incredible piece of technology, destroyed by real bad product decisions.
Could whoever disagreed with the person above me please articulate themselves as to why? I found it to hold a fair point. Just curious why these kind of comments aren't welcome.
I wouldn't even know my own neighbourhood as well as I do without Google maps. One of, if not the single most impressive digital feats freely available to all on the internet.
I remember when Google maps first came out in like 2005 or so. It was a truely revolutionary app.
Not just for being one of the first apps to be properly dynamic and AJAX based, but also because it was possibly the first time that we had access to an entire world of satellite maps online, something previously reserved for large corporations and governments.
Lately I have even been wanting an operating system that has maps as the main UI, or a majorly core feature. With the amount that I use maps, it is an absolute pain to have to switch to it all the time.
I pin every place recommendation I find in my social circles online and tag them with who suggested them. When I'm driving I'd like to pin/note places I see without interacting with the phone. When I'm flying I wan't to know what specific features I am seeing from the air (towns, mountains, lakes). When I'm on a road trip I want to hear snippets of info about the small towns that I'm passing through or the things I see out the window. When I'm walking I want to use the camera for input and output to the map to pin and locate myself. When I'm indoors I don't want to feel lost again or ask where the restroom is.
Location has become a core part of my interaction with the world but it still feels rather basic as a 3rd party app on my phone. Or another tab on my desktop.
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