Review: Google Maps
Score:
79%
Creating a Google Maps client on a modern Windows Phone faces a number of problems. Firstly, Google will have nothing to do with it, so everything has to be sourced by public APIs. Secondly, most phones will already have HERE Maps pre-installed, often with full offline country maps, making the online Google Maps slower and less convenient. However, the benefits of Google's POI database, StreetView imagery and traffic layers are all enough to make a good client worthwhile, and Clarity has produced just this, arguably blending the best of all worlds together into a seamless whole...
Version Reviewed: 8.7.0.3
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So again - sorry if the application name (and indeed its icon, if you look in the app listings!) got your hopes up. In fact, there are several apps of this name in the Windows Phone Store (insert my usual rant against Microsoft QA), so make sure you grab the right one. This is perhaps the best of the breed and recently had a big update, so high time for 'Google Maps' (sic) to get the review treatment here.
Available for free, of course, since the source maps are effectively free via Google's (and, as it turns out, Nokia's and Microsoft's) APIs, 'Google Maps' here does add the occasional banner ad, sometimes also asking for donations to keep development going for Windows Phone. In view of the integration and UI work done here, this is fair enough and I wish the developers well.
It's worth stating up front that 'Google Maps' takes no prisoners when it comes to sourcing its data. By default it uses the offline maps (from HERE) that you may already have on your device, even while searching Google Maps' POI database and presenting Google Traffic and StreetView data. It's a sign of the maturity of the mapping market in most countries that the various alternatives all 'line up' this accurately, such that you can overlay one data set on the other without worrying about jarring mismatches.
The idea, obviously, behind using your own offline maps wherever possible (and indeed there's a shortcut to this function in HERE Maps on the Google Maps menu!) is that it can save you a lot of data when accessing this system while mobile. If using this hybrid approach upsets you then it's easy to pick the map source you want from the settings menu.
Initial impressions are good, with a set of tutorial screens introducing different aspects of the interface - each can be cancelled or set to pop up later to 'remind', etc.
And then you're into the maps, with the option of '3D' (just a visual effect, tilting the 2D map, obviously, though there are some genuine 3D models of buildings in some cities, with again the hybrid system of Google structures overlaid on Nokia map data!), going to your current location (as determined by GPS or wi-fi/cellular, according to your device settings) or searching by name/category. Interestingly, there's a voice input option, but this isn't Google's rather splendid Maps voice recognition system - it's the standard Microsoft one and does a pretty awful job of transcribing place names.
...looks like this was snapped while the fair was in town!!
Zooming in and out of the maps is with multi-touch, though 'Google Maps' stops short of implementing the 'twist' gesture to rotate things - instead there are on-screen controls to rotate the map, along with a layers/maps master control. This latter proves invaluable as a way of quickly switching map source and turning on and off layers like traffic and transit, as needed.
As usual with Google (and indeed HERE) Maps, red lines aren't good, indicating queuing traffic...
The speed of 'Google Maps' isn't quite there, if you've tried the real thing on a modern Android device - the displays frequently flash with overlay updates and it can take several seconds for a particular view to be fully composed if you have several layers turned on, but be restrained about what you ask for and it's still very useable. The StreetView presentation is the slowest aspect of 'Google Maps' here by far, in that swivelling the viewpoint and generally moving around can be frustratingly slow and jerky.
Using StreetView to locate and find the name of a business I vaguely new was at a particular location. Shame the phone number got mangled by the photo joins...
But it's churlish to complain too much - this is a completely free (aside from any donations you might supply!) application that brings you most of the functionality of Google Maps on Android in an interface that makes sense on Windows Phone - and manages to integrate with the excellent HERE Maps where needed as well.
Very unselfishly, Google Maps spawns out to Waze or HERE Maps, as needed, for example here passing my destination and start position over to Nokia's built-in navigation system.
Google's POI (Points Of Interest) directory is second to none and in addition there's now integration with user photos and reviews, all also accessible here within 'Google Maps' for Windows Phone...
The StreetView imagery and 3D building models are Google's, the map itself is Nokia's - impossible to see the joins!
Some of the search categories, though note that there's guarantee that all businesses will be in the mighty Google database - here the NatWest bank seems to have pushed the right buttons or crossed the right palms with silver, to get its ATMs into the database to the exclusion of other brands/banks!
Who could resist a kitten?(!) Go on, 'Google Maps' is worth a donation, we reckon....
While traffic flow is accurate and detailed, the same can't be said for the 'incidents' pane. On the right, here, the map is centred around an accident on the M4 motorway, yet all the pane wants to tell me about are scheduled roadworks. Hmm....
Although not yet perfect, this is still very much a recommended install, whether it's for emergency look-ups of things that HERE Maps can't find, whether it's to browse through Google's social treasure trove of real world reviews, or whether it's because you like having StreetView at your fingertips.
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at