Google Maps Treasure Hunt for April Fools

Google have a great history of April Fools jokes and this years is a treasure hunt for Google Maps. You can browse around their 2D treasure maps and then pop into 'street view' to see the world through a periscope. Look out for pirates, treasure and landmarks such as the sunken Titanic.


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Google Maps for iPhone

Google Maps have released an iPhone app bringing Apple's mapping service back to millions of iOS 6 users who are discontent with Apple's in built maps. The upgrade to iOS 6 forced users to lose their Google maps but users gained turn-by-turn navigation and an incredible new 3D mapping system. Google have been quick to release a similar 3D mapping service on Google Earth, fly over San Francisco on Google Earth to see for yourself.

Apple's maps have been built using vector images, and load quickly at all scales. Google previous maps used to load at each scale but have been redesigned to uses vector imagery as well. Google have also included turn-by-turn navigation to compete with Apple's maps and the many other navigation apps available, often for free on the iPhone platform.

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Google Maps is Epic

Have you ever sat down and thought about Google Earth? Well it's rather ambitious, even for one of the largest technology companies in the world, to map the whole world. And yeah, they are trying to map the whole world, with detailed maps, satellite images, street view, local businesses and turn-by-turn navigation. And then to offer it to anyone with internet access... for free. Google has changed the way millions of us use maps.

This video from Google explains where the Google Maps/Google Earth service is going and a bit about the history of the service. Google's mapping service during the Katrina Hurricane disaster is just one way that digital maps have changed the world.

 

Google Map's Quest for April Fools

Google Maps - Quest Mode

It's April the 1st so don't trust anything in the news! This year Google have added a Quest Mode to Google Maps. This turns the world into an 8 bit quest, even street view is 8 bit! It's an easy Easter Egg to under cover, just head over to maps.google.com and click the Quest button in the top right hand side of the map.

8 Bit Quest version on Central Park, New York

The regular Google Maps view of Central Park, New York

Google Maps Style Improvements

Google Maps has become the standard for mapping in the last few years. Their maps are accessed by people all across the globe for accurate and up to date maps of the world.

The recent 2011 update is compared to 2009 on Google's Lat Long blog, the images are below.

New York is a good demonstration of how the map is easier to read as the main roads are shown narrower.

This is most dramatic change is in Sydney, where there is a large concentration of main roads. The colours used in the map are toned down, and as a result more information can be displayed. This increases as you zoom in, where labels appear and are resized at every zoom level. The images below show London's South Bank.

And zoomed in London South Bank University shows the names of individual buildings. Try it yourself in the embedded map below.

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So how did an internet search engine become so dominant in the world of cartography?