That's freaky

[lehser]

I appear to be caught right in the middle of an interface upgrade.  I've had our application (AEGIS) open all day (and for the last 2 days), fooling around with it.  It has a maps component using, of course, Google maps.  We show "hybrid" view.  It comes up (even all this week) as "hybrid" view, with its own button and all.  So all day I've had the classic "hybrid" view up.  Only, when I go to open a location in the main Google maps, I discover that "hybrid" view is now unavailable (as such, anyway).   All you can see is "terrain".  Somehow, I'm feeling more disoriented by this than I probably should.

Also, and this is just me, I wouldn't mind if they'd mention these things on, say, the Maps API page.  Even if only to say that nothing's changing from that point of view.  We're just about to do a version 1 release, have been sweating for weeks to finalize and release/tag/etc the code, and the prospect that the API might be changing out from under us filled me with delight, I can tell you.  (In point of fact, we determined by looking at the cryptic tags in the "email this page" link that satellite with labels is still named hybrid from the point of view of the API, but that's not exactly what I'd call documentation.)

Comments

[dpg178.livejournal.com]

It seems that the old hybrid is now satellite and satellite w/o the street grid is now nonexistent. Terrain is something new and seems largely useless, at least for urban areas.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

I thought it was great, looking around Berkeley and San Francisco...

[ams16.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I noticed this on Tuesday? and I don't think the terrain view is all that useful without actual numbers. (Hint, Google people.)

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Go to their feedback group (http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API) and say so!

(Although it's hard to know just what to say... "Um, hi, we're the API people, and the API isn't changing at all, have a nice day"? :-)

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Did you notice this post (http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/11/explore-new-terrain.html) in Google LatLong (http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/), the Maps team's blog? They point out how to get to the old (un-street-labelled) satellite view: choose "Satellite" and hover over that button, then check or un-check "show labels".