does anyone else dislike the whole WebGL experience that google is using for maps, earth and also this. the performance is just laggy and terrible...in all browsers. i've switched back to classic maps and it loads instantly, zooms instantly and is overall a superior 2d experience.
Not to mention the optimized-for-touch experience, where a single click (or too short a drag) is sufficient to clear your search result. Or the over-abundance of context-sensitive animations and popups that jump around. Since the redesign, I still have no clue where they moved the permalink button.
It's not even a case of "I'm a techie, therefore I hate (it|change in general)", regular consumers uniformly say the same thing.
I really dislike it too. Performance is terrible and the interface has become a game of "which corner or hidden menu is this basic functionality buried under?".
But it's getting better. Street view is improved and you can finally add multiple destinations, but it's still a usability nightmare.
I don't know if this was part of some grand scheme to unify Earth and Maps, but it's been a really rough ride.
>the interface has become a game of "which corner or hidden menu is this basic functionality buried under?".
That, to my mind, is the cornerstone of Google's UI direction in the last few years - I've been having an increasingly harder time working out (and remembering) how to use their interfaces
I personally hadn't said anything because I thought I was missing something or had poorly configured chrome, it has seemed like a step backwards to me. Thanks for confirming my sneaky suspicions.
Yes, me too. Google Maps seems to be getting worse and worse in my experience. I started using OpenStreetMap. Lots of features are missing, but what exists actually works. And it turns out I never used Google Maps-only features anyway.
I almost started to surrender to the latest gmaps until I used bing maps which reminded me how simple and smooth the previous gmaps was. OSM is nice too now.
Yes I thought it was just because I used chrome on linux (which struggles with webgl). The most frustrating thing is the way it ignores anything you put in the search box until the page has fully loaded which is usually 3-4 seconds...
Maybe it's time for Google to adopt asm.js. That should give those WebGL apps enough performance boost to work well.
I'm starting to dislike their support of NaCl anyway. They don't even bother to support it well enough on ARM. If something doesn't work on ARM, then it shouldn't exist, anymore. I think it's well established by now that ARM is a main, if not the main chip architecture of the future. There should be zero difference between the support for an x86 Chromebook and an ARM one, but years after working on PNaCl, it seems it's still not supported well enough.
Pity. Can I use Google Earth proper somehow?