Live Maps switches to Multimap

Wikipedia » Blog Archive » Live Maps switches to Multimap

Wikipedia » Blog Archive » Live Maps switches to Multimap — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:09:23 GMT

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re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Blake Handler — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:27:15 GMT

One Man's "upgrade" is another Man's "downgrade"

It appears that your new UK maps are actually not as good as the maps you already had!

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=572

Blake Handler

Microsoft MVP

"The Road to Know Where"

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Manan — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:41:48 GMT

Could someone enlighten me as to what are the benefits of this, i hope there are benefits else why would MS do it

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Peter — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:13:52 GMT

This is shocking. Live maps were really good, multimap is a shocking pile of rubbish. Bring back the old maps. I'll be just using google maps from now on it seems.

LiveMaps or Multipap in the UK

The blog of Rob Margel — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:20:58 GMT

There has been some good debate for the pros and cons (mainly cons on the debate) of the switch from

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Hugo — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:16:05 GMT

Microsoft, the gloves are off on this one.

This was a SH1T decision and it's made me FURIOUS. Until yesterday I was singing the praises of Live Maps and getting everyone to move over from Google... and now I'll have to go back to them all and tell them to ignore what I said. It's now absolutely unusable.

By the looks of the posts flooding other blogs, everyone else feels the same way. How on earth could you not have predicted this would happen?

Luckily, I've just found a way for UK users to bypass MultiCRAP (which may or may not last) -- just click the following link: http://maps.live.com/?mkt=en-us

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Gary — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:29:40 GMT

If you speak to the Live Product Manager again in the near future can you mention what a stupid and short-sighted change this is.

Yes, it is easy to develop with Virtual Earth, but it seems it's just as easy to make an absolute hash of it. On the same day that the underlying Virtual Earth platform gets some great improvements, the UK not only doesn't gain from those improvements but instead takes several steps backwards.

Surely it makes more sense to wean the relatively small number of UK multimap users over to the Virtual Earth / Live brand that Microsoft is investing in so heavily everywhere else in the world?

At the very least people should be able to choose, rather than have Multimap forced upon them, presumably to help increase its advertising revenue.

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

AdamV — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:44:49 GMT

I like the fact that when I zoom out past a certain point I can choose OS maps instead of the default TeleAtlas ones, since OS show things like rights of way, footpaths etc. Only 1:50,000 scale but still pretty useful.

You ask who knows what "hybrid" means - I do, for one. I find that an overlay of road map on actual overhead imagery gives a better perspective of where I am and is useful to build a mental picture of an area. The new equivalent term seems to be to turn on road naming under the Aerial button (this also highlights streets to make them stand out from the background).

Now you just need to get it to work in IE8!

(Beta Version 8.0.6001.17184 shows map tiles way outside their containing border area, this was broken before the switch to Live)

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Jim — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:10:20 GMT

Ditto. There probably are some "cute" features in MM but it looks rubbish, the ads take over the screen and the map is just looks like a thin strip, even in full screen mode. Typical bloody MS. Moan, gripe etc.

I'm actually embarrassed now about the number of people I've raved at about how amazing live maps was.

Long live: http://maps.live.com/?mkt=en-us

Google must be pissin in their pants.

Oh and the mouse-wheel zoom - why oh why oh why, did they take that out?

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Quikboy — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:35:09 GMT

Sorry, but even with the so-called localizationness of Multimap, the features in Live Maps are far more compelling, and Multimap has too much lag.

Please fix this. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's one of those boneheaded Microsoft mistakes that gets users angry at them so often. You should have left Live Maps like it was.

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Nickleics — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:42:13 GMT

Multimap is a poor substitute for what came before it. I beg and implore Microsoft to sort this mess out very quickly.

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Nick Marsh — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:47:30 GMT

Please join the Facebook group campaigning against the change to Multimap in the UK:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14574166409&ref=mf

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Polly — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:06:49 GMT

Looks like it's back to Google Maps for me, which is a shame as I loved using Live Maps but there is no way I am using Multimap. I stopped using Multi Map years ago. This is such a strange thing for Microsoft to do, what were they thinking???

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Giannis — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:11:07 GMT

I have been using Live maps for some time know and i always liked it. It had a simple interface and excellent map coverage.

They even covered my home country of Cyprus in great detail which Google Maps does not at all! But now with this stupid Multimap thing the map window is a LOT smaller, a lot more annoying to use and in Cyprus cannot even zoom in to actualy see any roads which i could zoom in to street level in Live Maps. And the ads! Oh my God!

I guess i'm going back to Google Maps for the time being. I really hope they dont screw up their mobile Live Maps application for Windows Mobile the same way they screwed up this. Live maps for WM is one of my favourite applications and i use it very often.

What was Microsoft thinking?? Honestly!

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Martin — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:04:20 GMT

Google must be so happy about this, they basically have no competition now. I would love to meet the person that though it would be a good idea to send all UK maps.live.com traffic to multimap.com, but I can't tell you what I would do to them as I would probably get arrested!

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

kc1974 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:50:40 GMT

Well, I'm IN THE US and I can't get to the real maps.live.com site anymore - I get the useless Multimap site. I have to use the link supplied above, otherwise my collections etc are lost!

As someone mentioned above, I was slowly starting to gain some respect for MS as a result of Live Maps. Not so much...

They really need to sort this out!

BTW, are MS looking at my IP? If they did, they'd see I'm in FL. If they're somehow looking at my bookmarks, I'm guessing they assume I'm in the UK as I bookmark BBC and Amazon UK. All this when I'm signed in to my Live account too... WTF!

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

David Richardson — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:28:49 GMT

I switched FROM multimap to maps.live because of the cr*p interface. I guess I'll be switching to google maps now.

Sorry Microsoft, but you've totally screwed this up.

The interface is lousy, the image/map size is too small, the search is non-intuitive. You'd have been better migrating Multimap to maps.live, and not the other way round.

Of course, MS never truly listen to critisism, their heads are too far up their .....

If you want, e-mail me at forenameWsurname@hotmail.com, filling in forename and surname from above.

Bye

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Martin Nikolaus Feuersteiner — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:33:24 GMT

I have the feeling James is censoring some too critical posts here..

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

James Senior — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:56:31 GMT

Absolutely not Martin! It's all great feedback to send to the Product Manager - keep it coming!!!! I'm on your side as a frustrated user!

James

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

Martin Nikolaus Feuersteiner — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:56:10 GMT

That's very reassuring James and I appreciate you being on the users side. Just wondered as my comment never got published. Must have been the swearing I guess. But I shall rest assured that it's being passed on to the Product Manager. If he hasn't lost his job by then or resigned by now if he has any dignity left.

Any other other secrets you may know and forgot to mention whilst 'chatting' to Product Managers, James? Perhaps Windows Vista SP2 reverting my machine back to Win 3.11?

Thanks & All the best, Martin

http://hottapcoldtap.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-and-improved-multimap.html

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

James Senior — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:38:07 GMT

You'll be glad to hear that normal service is resumed on Live Maps :-)

Live Maps in the UK - normal service is resumed

James.Random() — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:41:32 GMT

You'll be glad to hear that Live Maps UK is no longer redirecting Multimap - well done for all your feedback

Users prevail: Microsoft undoes forced move to Multimap

Bink.nu — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:22:52 GMT

Within hours of Microsoft redirecting its UK users from Live Search Maps to Multimap last week, user

Changes afoot for UK Live Maps

James.Random() — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:40:22 GMT

The product managers for Live Maps in the UK have taken a slightly more proactive approach than last

re: Live Maps switches to Multimap

KC — Sun, 25 May 2008 07:17:37 GMT

Multimap has come back again!... grr...