Last year in March, Google introduced Maps Engine Lite, a free and publicly available version of the search giant’s custom map creation tools for enterprise. It stood alone from Google’s My Maps, a simpler service, but the company promised the two services would eventually merge. A few months more than a year to the day, Google has finally delivered on that pledge.
Somewhat confusingly, Maps Engine Lite has been rebranded as My Maps, but retains all of its functionality – you can still share and add pictures, custom icons, and descriptions to maps. Other than a new icon and the ability for users of the classic My Maps to upgrade their old creations, the web and mobile app have not changed.
The benefits of upgrading maps created in the older My Maps editor are many, Google avers. The new and improved My Maps lets you import spreadsheets, embed images and YouTube videos, and more easily organize locations and routes. Of course, you don’t have much of a choice – all classic maps will apparently upgrade automatically by the end of this year.
My Maps is in the play store and online.
“A few months more than a year to the day” o.O
I never stopped making custom bike routes (and running routes) on my desktop and viewing them on my phone. I would be lost without it (ha ha) but Google keep taking this killer function and making it harder to do like the idiots they are. At present I use an old version of the android app to view “classic” maps in the layers menu option (download the app here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2566159 ).
But the new maps don’t seem to appear in that map list. So the new more clunky way is to export the kml file from a new-style map, host it elsewhere online, and enter the url in the search bar of Google Maps – the old version (maps 6 as in the link above).
My other niggle is that the new-style maps don’t show distance as you plot a path.
Why have Google taken a brilliant product and removed the best things about it?
I’ll have to try it when I get home. But I miss being able to make custom bike routes on my PC and then loading it in google maps.
The most valuable thing I learned from this article was another word for “states”. Yayyy another word to make me sound smart and BS my way through college.
Ya, what is this???
AVERS