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New Maps - HORRID!


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I don't know about the maps as I have not seen that affect. I do use C:Geo...not sure if that is something we should be talking about on here. (I am a premium member and have payed for the geocaching.com app as well) This update killed the live map feature that I love to use. When driving around at work I can click on the live map and see what is coming up as I am in the area. Now that is no longer available. >:( It has made it way harder for me to look for caches on the go and is really a pain. We are going to Kauai next week and really would like it to work how I am used to on vacation. Here at home I can deal with it but it is really a pain. I think I can download all the caches on the island with the new update and be OK but wish this could have happened a couple of weeks from now.

-WarNinjas

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Not going to go through 3 pages of comments. I'm getting use to the maps except the zooming in and losing the satillite and the I noticed that when I click on the caches nothing come up most of the time nothing happens. Especially the iphone app. Those are my issues.

Hate to make this suggestion but how about having Google Maps be PMO usage and the non members being these maps?

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How would everyone feel if in lieu of Google maps we got ten PQs a day instead of five?

 

So far, the maps seem to be moving along reasonably for us. Definitely slower, but not obscenely slow like they originally were. But we aren't die-hard cachers. We might go after two or three caches per week. Before we go out somewhere, I check the map in the area of my destination and pick a few candidates. We read each cache page to make sure the cache is likely to be there, and see where a good place to park might be. Thus far, the new maps are still covering what we need.

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I do use C:Geo...not sure if that is something we should be talking about on here. (I am a premium member and have payed for the geocaching.com app as well) This update killed the live map feature that I love to use.
Yes, that's to be expected. Given that c:geo scrapes the geocaching.com site to get its data (in violation of the TOU), it isn't surprising that c:geo breaks every time there is a significant change to the geocaching.com site.
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To me, at least, $30 isn't going to break the bank. I'll continue to support a website and a hobby that I really enjoy. Plus I like PQs.

 

I'm not going to stop supporting GS just because they changed the maps.

 

This pretty much sums up my own feelings.

I am disappointed that the maps have changed, but as long as the Google Maps are still available by links on the cache pages, I'll just use that when I want a satellite view of the area. Initially, I didn't see that link.

Like everything else in life, things change.

I choose to continue having fun and roll with it.

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This is the worst move GS has ever made. Before I enjoyed and used the cache numbering and listing in the right hand column and now thats all gone. The aerial view besides being extremely slow, never completely loads.

I don't think they spent enough time searching for a new map provider that is equal to or better than what was provided before.

Edited by beagle39z
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These new maps are horrible. Please go back to the old maps. Plus C:geo doesn't even work now since you switched to the new map layout. So all those people who have droids and were counting on C:geo can't use that application. I didn't see what was the point of switching to this new map layout.

You might want to do a little research before you complain, The point of switching to the different maps is that Google was going to charge lots of money if Groundspeak continued to use them. C:geo has refused to use the site API and continues to scrape the site so it is not Groundspeak's responsibility to maintain it's functionality.

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I can't blame google for not wanting sites to charge money to use their maps. Still bandwidth costs money and Groundspeak at least has to break even. Ironic that if the site was free they could still provide google maps. I guess I should have saved more maps offline on my c:geo though. I've got plenty to get me through the winter but will need to save more for offline use by spring. Hopefully a c:geo alternative that can use offline maps and offline cache locations is developed. I don't have or plan to get a data plan, I use my wi-fi.

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There's also the question of how long these other services will be free. They aren't selling any advertising on the GS pages. I'm certain that Google knows it has competitors, and I expect they priced their service to undercut anyone else who is charging enough to make a living. And with Google charging for map loads, the other services will be hit with all the freeloaders like GS dumping Google for the next free service in line. How long before GS has to change again anyway, running away from paying for services? My guess is that within a year or two, there won't be any free service for this purpose which even comes close to being acceptable. GS has gone to all this work only to postpone the inevitable. Servers and bandwidth cost a lot of money, and someone pays for them or they go dark.

 

I think Edward is spot-on here....

Finally, a voice of sanity amongst all this angst and all this blaming Groundspeak for a problem they didn't cause. Thank you, paleolith and Sky King 36!

 

--Larry

 

 

 

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The new maps are a big step down from the old maps. The google based maps had better detail. When I go caching in a new area I like to print a map of the area to take with me. The new maps have no street names until you get to a level that is too close to be useful for navigation. The old maps had street names at a zoom level that was farther out, making it easy to navigate while I was caching in an unknown area.

 

Really - what were they thinking? I really liked the old Google maps. These are a short step above useless.

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The new maps suck! yeas Like the trails etc on the open maps but it hardly has any of the roads around here at all. Not to mention rivers etc....are all wrong. Forget about zooming in you end up with a white screen. Switching to aerial view is even worse. Load times are horrible and you never get the full image. I constantly hit 11.5 mbps download speeds and can never get a good map to load.

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As one who relies heavily on satellite views for work and play, I am not at all happy with the inability to view caches in the satellite view. I would like to know just exactly where I can access and learn to use the GSAK macro or the Google Earth macro to add caches to the free applications out there. I don't like it but I understand the greed associated with the Google side of the house and urge GS to seek out free avenues to keep this activity as inexpensive as possible. If someone can point me to the means to find and use the macros mentioned above, I'd be grateful. Thanks, gunnerb

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I just tried looking at a cache that was published this morning. It's next to a lake, so I definitely wanted the aerial view. About half the view loaded before it gave up at three minutes. I reloaded and tried again, and this time got about 2/3 of the map loaded in aerial view. Six minutes and I still don't have a single complete aerial view.

 

I don't like to throw around the phrases "totally unacceptable" and "totally unusable", but the current situation does warrant those descriptions.

 

Groundspeak, you investigated the alternatives. That's good. What was your after-implementation monitoring plan? What was your fallback plan in case the new maps proved unusable, as has turned out to be the case for many of us?

 

Edward

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If you want to look at a single cache in the aerial view use the link to the google map that is on every cache page. It is the third one down in the list of online maps. You can only look at one cache at a time but it works fine to see the details of topography around a cache. Some of you might to read the thread before posting. This has been mentioned repeatedly. In addition several grease monkey strips have been posted. Also there are very helpful people in the GSAK forum that will offer help.

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I don't like it but I understand the greed associated with the Google side of the house

 

"You can't afford to give me millions of dollars of free stuff that I never pay for, and therefore, you are greedy"???

 

I am not a big fan of Groundspeak's decisions over the past few years, it seems like a stream of epic miscalculations. I am not that big a fan of Google either... But any attempt on either of their parts to make a responsible profit by charging money for ANYTHING is met with resentment. Somehow we got this idea that the words "delivered online" is a synonym for "must be really inexpensive to make." Even on the android market, people are absolutely thrashed with criticism when they charge 99 cents for a really refined app.

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There's also the question of how long these other services will be free.[...]

[...] The popularity of location-based utilities (like the geocaching website) and mobile apps (tablets and smart phones) is really, really bad news for us all. [...] One by one, every free map service has been utterly crushed into non-existence by user demand. [...] The "everything free all the time" model is not sustainable. It never was.

Thanks for the followup and additional info. I'm not surprised that I was predicting what was already happening. Such a prediction wasn't exactly rocket science. Still, it's always reassuring to find one's predictions verified so quickly. <_<

 

I've always disliked the "everything free" model. Of course it was never free, it was mostly advertising-supported, the few exceptions being small sites supported by one or two people, Wikipedia supported by donations, some subscription sites, and the like. Even free software is skewed by this. It's not quite so obvious that the browser you are reading this in is advertising-supported, but it is -- every time you send a search to Google via the search box/function in the browser, the browser's producer gets a kickback from Google (or whichever other search engine you used). Is it any accident that in most browsers it's difficult to disable the moving images, flash, etc which are mostly used for advertising? In how many even more subtle ways is the browser operation affected by the fact that it's advertising-supported? (And yes, even the Firefox project, while open source, rakes in a lot of money from the kickbacks.)

 

As to the nature of the news of the crunch on location-based utilities ... well, I'd say it's good news and bad news. Yes, it's bad news because we have to change and might even have to pay an additional $10/year over the $30/year that we've been paying for, what, well, longer than the five years I've been paying it. (Assumptions regarding this $10 calculation were in my previous post.) The good news, though, is that the services are charging for what they provide and thus can build out their infrastructure to meet demand.

 

Or to put it another way, when we didn't pay anything, we were getting more than we paid for, but often less than we wanted or needed. Now we have a chance to get what we pay for, and possibly what we want and need, in a market where competition works pretty well (which isn't true in all markets).

 

So please, providers of all sorts: CHARGE ME for what I use. And then provide what I need and want.

 

Edward

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I just tried looking at a cache that was published this morning. It's next to a lake, so I definitely wanted the aerial view. About half the view loaded before it gave up at three minutes. I reloaded and tried again, and this time got about 2/3 of the map loaded in aerial view. Six minutes and I still don't have a single complete aerial view.

 

Why didn't you use Google Maps satellite view for it? As has been pointed out several times, there is a link to it on the cache page.

 

It's not like the interactive geocaching map is the only way to look at caches.

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If you want to look at a single cache in the aerial view use the link to the google map that is on every cache page. It is the third one down in the list of online maps.

And as has been repeatedly pointed out in this thread, that's quite inconvenient. Generally I want to look at the road map first and then maybe switch to see the imagery. When I've got the imagery, I usually want to check where the other caches in the area are.

 

So yes, there are workarounds. But geocaching is a game. Force us into a lot of workarounds and it's no longer fun.

 

Edward

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"You can't afford to give me millions of dollars of free stuff that I never pay for, and therefore, you are greedy"???

Not to mention that Google has been one of the largest providers of Free Stuff on the net, if not the largest. And they've done it by serving up relatively unobtrusive ads that don't disrupt my experience on the web. I too don't agree with all their practices and I have a lot of concern about the effects of the near-monopoly situation, yet greedy isn't the word that comes to my mind when I think of Google.

 

Edward

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cacheon.jpg

 

I will be - but I won't be trusting the maps to be accurate.

 

Google maps aren't any more accurate. I really like the hybrid Google maps they have with the roads that don't match where the sat photo shows them...lol good times. Then you have to ask, which one is right? Are they both wrong? :ph34r:

 

All this complaining is cracking me up. You folks need to get out and cache more. I love the fact my eTrex 10 does NOT have pre-loaded street maps on them. I just load the gpx files from my pq and find the cache. Sometimes I drive around in circles but that's part of the fun. The real reason I became a premie was for the pq's so I could load up my Garmin with oodles of caches from a given area.

 

-Dave

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no refresh maps button, no link to the home page, the cache icons don't stand out (very hard to see if you've 'cleared' an area), no satellite option (very useful when countryside caching as you cannot see hedges on any other kind of map)........WE HATE THE NEW MAPS AND WILL NOT BE RENEWING PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP NEXT MONTH!!!!!!!

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cacheon.jpg

 

I will be - but I won't be trusting the maps to be accurate.

 

Google maps aren't any more accurate. I really like the hybrid Google maps they have with the roads that don't match where the sat photo shows them...lol good times. Then you have to ask, which one is right? Are they both wrong? :ph34r:

 

All this complaining is cracking me up. You folks need to get out and cache more. I love the fact my eTrex 10 does NOT have pre-loaded street maps on them. I just load the gpx files from my pq and find the cache. Sometimes I drive around in circles but that's part of the fun. The real reason I became a premie was for the pq's so I could load up my Garmin with oodles of caches from a given area.

 

-Dave

 

My first GPS was an etrex h. But I still used the multicache maps to plan my trip to get to the caching area. Now my nearest unfound caches are 100+ kms away maps are more impt for route planning. Google is FAR less inaccurate than the current offerings, in my neck of the woods

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This is the same thing I get here in Louisiana. The maps do look fairly good & I could get use to them, but zooming in & out and switching from road maps to aerial causes the maps to lock up & just not load completely. I sure hope there is another source that's better than this one. Keep trying GS....

 

 

I will agree that the maps are most definitely a step back. Regrettable that Google FORCED Groundspeak to go here. Also not the only service that's been backing off Google Maps due to this policy. Here's what I get near Toronto, Canada.

 

OpenStreetMap Layer:

 

b72a4a4b-3853-4575-8dc8-6a7162da608e.png?rnd=0.8704801

 

MyTopo Layer:

 

40d5981d-4354-4dbb-a2d4-d9eb13988793.png?rnd=0.4457989

 

Mapquest Aerial Layer:

 

60305d99-6af2-42de-95cb-bec1398f24d5.png?rnd=0.5375665

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You might want to do a little research before you complain

You might want to heed your own advice...

 

C:geo has refused to use the site API

This is so far from the truth. They WANT to use the API, GS is the hangup on this issue, not c:geo. GS seems to oppose open source software for no logical reason and won't issue an API key.

 

and continues to scrape the site

Wrong again, c:geo is nothing more than an "enhanced" browser, GS ONLY made this statement about the very first version, well before it was open source. The false rumors have continued since.

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The false rumors have continued since.

And they apparently continue. Fact is, Groundspeak has offered an API license for c:geo. But the folks behind the open-source software decided that since the API is limited to only 3 caches for a non-member, (and 6,000 caches for a PM) that the API is not good enough and so far have refused to use it.

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The coverage for the satellite (aerial view) maps is obviously much less than the Google maps but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. The use of satellite maps in lieu of capturing coordinates with a "real" GPS had become much more common lately...

But satellite maps also serve some useful purposes. When I'm urban caching, for example, I like to find paths between houses that lead to greenspaces where caches are located. OpenStreetMap often doesn't show those paths, but I usually can spot them with the satellite map.

 

A workaround is to use the small inset Google map on the cache listing page, but I'm not sure how long that will continue to be an option. Plan B would be to copy-and-paste the coordinates, open another browser window, and use Google Maps to display the coordinates. But that's rather awkward to do repeatedly.

 

Do you carry your laptop with you to look at while you're in the field? Or can you photographically remember the satellite view. I just don't see how a different map can be a huge problem. It's not going to look like that when you get there, unless you're arriving by helicopter. :)

Do you have a smart phone? Does it have an app that uses the maps you like?

 

Just watch. Tomorrow Google maps people are going to wonder why their map hits have dropped a zillion-fold, and take it back.

And maybe the new maps are slow, because everyone is looking at once, because of the change. Geocachers are many, we probably have an effect on the pattern now.

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Actually I carry my ipad out in the field with me and that is when I was able to see the satellite view of an area. The other problem that has come up with this change is that I can no longer click on the cache icon to bring up the cache info bubble (on the ipad, works fine at home on the desktop) I use this feature a lot when ever I'm in an area that I had not done any pre-loading of caches. Don't carry my desktop with me everywhere.

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The false rumors have continued since.

And they apparently continue. Fact is, Groundspeak has offered an API license for c:geo. But the folks behind the open-source software decided that since the API is limited to only 3 caches for a non-member, (and 6,000 caches for a PM) that the API is not good enough and so far have refused to use it.

It was offered under the anti-open source condition that it couldn't be visible to anyone, i.e. it had to be obfuscated in the source code or compiled in a way that the key wasn't visible.

 

That simply isn't possible with open source.

 

C:GEO even came back and asked what if we just didn't include it and every user was on their own to get it, gs didn't like that either.

 

The fact that its limited for non premium users, while it was icing on the cake, wasn't part of the reasoning.

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It was offered under the anti-open source condition that it couldn't be visible to anyone, i.e. it had to be obfuscated in the source code or compiled in a way that the key wasn't visible.

 

That simply isn't possible with open source.

Thank you for that. I missed that part. But that means your previous post was wrong:

 

C:geo has refused to use the site API

This is so far from the truth. They WANT to use the API, GS is the hangup on this issue, not c:geo. GS seems to oppose open source software for no logical reason and won't issue an API key.

First you say there is "no logical reason" then when pressed, you explain the logical reason. Groundspeak doesn't want anybody and everybody getting their hands on the API key and using the same key in dozens of different apps. Seems quite logical to me.

 

I don't know how Android apps work, but I wonder if they could omit the key from the published source code, and only include it in the actual built app in the Android Market. Or is it still easy for another developer to reverse-compile the app and get the key? :unsure:

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Groundspeak doesn't want anybody and everybody getting their hands on the API key and using the same key in dozens of different apps. Seems quite logical to me.

It's mostly philosophical differences. Probably irreconcilable. But more to the point, Groundspeak does not seem to have thought about open source development when they drafted their API license. Where the logic really fails is labeling something that is not public, a public API.

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C:geo has refused to use the site API

This is so far from the truth. They WANT to use the API, GS is the hangup on this issue, not c:geo. GS seems to oppose open source software for no logical reason and won't issue an API key.

First you say there is "no logical reason" then when pressed, you explain the logical reason. Groundspeak doesn't want anybody and everybody getting their hands on the API key and using the same key in dozens of different apps. Seems quite logical to me.

I never explained a logical reason, only a reason.

 

You also make a GREAT argument for user keys instead of application keys, the very same request that c:geo has made, and gs seems to oppose.

 

User keys almost always make more sense, I could probably quite easily pull a key from an app that has a valid key and use it maliciously, and all GS could do is either let it be, or kill the key and piss off every single user of that app. (Think if I pulled the key from their very own app, then used it maliciously.) User keys don't have this problem, if a key goes rogue, only one legitimate user loses access.

 

I don't know how Android apps work, but I wonder if they could omit the key from the published source code, and only include it in the actual built app in the Android Market. Or is it still easy for another developer to reverse-compile the app and get the key? :unsure:

What you're saying goes against the concept of open source, either its open (you have the source code for what you run), or its not. If the "binary" version didn't come from the source code that is also distributed, then its not open, by any definition. It wouldn't even be possible to build a working app from the source code.

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There's also the question of how long these other services will be free. They aren't selling any advertising on the GS pages. I'm certain that Google knows it has competitors, and I expect they priced their service to undercut anyone else who is charging enough to make a living. And with Google charging for map loads, the other services will be hit with all the freeloaders like GS dumping Google for the next free service in line. How long before GS has to change again anyway, running away from paying for services? My guess is that within a year or two, there won't be any free service for this purpose which even comes close to being acceptable. GS has gone to all this work only to postpone the inevitable. Servers and bandwidth cost a lot of money, and someone pays for them or they go dark.

 

I think Edward is spot-on here....

Finally, a voice of sanity amongst all this angst and all this blaming Groundspeak for a problem they didn't cause. Thank you, paleolith and Sky King 36!

 

--Larry

 

 

GREAT video. It applies here too.

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Well shoot.

 

LOC and GPX files won't let me download more than the first page on the preview window even when I click on 'check all', so I can't choose a route.

MacCaching I ended up deleting because it would only show four or five caches and their map view is stuck on a 2 inch square. Seemed to work better yesterday when it showed me a larger map.

 

This is starting to take the fun out of caching when I spend hours trying to plot a route.

 

money money money, I know........ just venting.

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It's not the new maps that I mind so much, it's the loss of functionality that accompanied this change that really pisses me off. Not being able to see multiple caches anymore on an aerial/satellite photo makes planning my route for a cache outing a much more difficult task. Instead of being a quick and easy glance at a single screen, it has become a chore. I also miss the simple display of a scale on the maps. These things make geocaching a more difficult activity to plan, and hence, a less enjoyable experience. Has geocaching.com finally jumped the shark?

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My BIGGEST issue with this new update is the fact that undiscovered caches are not located on the map anymore and ”found” caches are..We would use the live map feature to locate caches on the way to our destination and plan our routes accordingly.. Now with this new feature we have use the ”nearby” to search which makes it's extremely difficult to plan.. I understand the financial part of switching, but why ruin a good thing.. Can't GS work something out with google? I would love in the near future to have this option back because it makes caching alot easier for us. I could careless about speed that's a minor fix, being able to easily locate caches along our travel routes is the kicker.. It used to be user friendly but know is a pain in the butt to locate caches using the map feature.. If anything PLEASE put the undiscovered caches back on the map, I'm sure I'm not the only person who loved this feature and misses it dearly..Please bring back the ”live map”..

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My BIGGEST issue with this new update is the fact that undiscovered caches are not located on the map anymore and ”found” caches are.

:blink:

Really? All you see are your finds? I haven't seen anyone else mention this behaviour in any of these forums. This definitely isn't how the maps work, so I think it's just you that's seeing this. When I look at the map, I see all caches, including found and unfound. You might want to email contact@geocaching.com for personalized assistance in sorting it out.

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