With the KML files, Google Earth could display nice icons QUICKLY on a satellite map. Google maps can not do this. Also, with Google Earth, the update was very regular, could it just be brought down to refresh already viewed areas once a day?
View new area - gets caches
Zoom in - Gets caches again.
Wouldn't it make more sense to do this?
View new area - get caches
Zoom in - use cached caches?
View area next day - have caches changed - reload if yes.
Much more sense...
Also, wouldn't encoding for .kml be the same difficulty as encoding for Google Maps
Finally,
Google Earth.
GE sends window to server
Server sends back cache types and locations
GE displays
Google Maps
Browser sends area to GM server
GM server sends window to GC server
GC server responds
GM server translates into HTML
Browser displays.
The GC.com server does the same work!!!
Google maps is faster.
Google Maps caches satellite data!
Google Maps can print easily
Google maps is much better, nicer and cleaner.
I wouldn't mind having a standalone .exe for geocaching.
