> The way you can pan and zoom, it's 1000x more useful than any of the road atlases I used to have to keep in my car.
Except when it cleverly hides the street names, PoIs and other important labels, as you zoom in. The way Google Maps does it is so absurd that it feels it's done on purpose.
A road atlas is a high-density map. Not the most convenient in paper form, and ripe for digitization, but not in the way Google Maps does it - information density is a feature on a map, when you're trying to orient yourself. It's only a problem when the app is optimized for navigating you to points you already know the address of.
> (And you can put down markers too, and then remove them later. Paper maps you can draw on, but erasing is hard/impossible.)
Sorta, kinda. That's another feature Google is going out of their way to make impossible to use. You can't just put markers (multiple) in the middle of a search or normal scrolling, for example.
Erasing from paper maps is easy - buy laminated ones and use dry-erase markers (or permanent markers and have some alcohol handy).
It's usually fine. Sure sometimes I wish it showed more, but that's just a matter of degree. Again, still 1000x more useful than a paper atlas. If it doesn't show the street name, it does when I zoom out or in or pan a little.
> You can't just put markers (multiple) in the middle of a search or normal scrolling, for example.
During normal scrolling? Of course you can. Just click on any building, and tap "save" in the panel that appears. I just checked on desktop, and you can even do it in the middle of a search -- the panel that appears is in addition to your existing search panel. Do it as many times as you want.
> Erasing from paper maps is easy - buy laminated ones and use dry-erase markers
I've never seen a laminated road atlas, and back in the day I worked a job that required driving for hours a day to addresses I'd never been before so I was familiar with all the atlases sold at the gas station and the bookstore. You're talking about the metropolitan atlases that are 100+ pages? I can't even imagine how thick and heavy they'd be if each page was laminated. Maybe they exist.
Except when it cleverly hides the street names, PoIs and other important labels, as you zoom in. The way Google Maps does it is so absurd that it feels it's done on purpose.
A road atlas is a high-density map. Not the most convenient in paper form, and ripe for digitization, but not in the way Google Maps does it - information density is a feature on a map, when you're trying to orient yourself. It's only a problem when the app is optimized for navigating you to points you already know the address of.
> (And you can put down markers too, and then remove them later. Paper maps you can draw on, but erasing is hard/impossible.)
Sorta, kinda. That's another feature Google is going out of their way to make impossible to use. You can't just put markers (multiple) in the middle of a search or normal scrolling, for example.
Erasing from paper maps is easy - buy laminated ones and use dry-erase markers (or permanent markers and have some alcohol handy).