GOOGLE EARTH MAPS LIVE SATELLITE UPDATE

Overall really great concept but what I’m gathering from other reviews, the app particularly for iPad is super low quality compared to others. It is absolutely impossible to tell one country/state from the next with the impossibly thin tan line separating everything that, oh yea, is the same color that is used for most of the landscape. Also, it would be really enjoyable (and easier on my old lady eyes) to be able to make borders bold or different colors or even cut out a region to view it individually. You can’t adjust any type of visual settings so if you zoom too far in on, say, China, you get a million different location names in English and Chinese and you can’t even see the land under all the text. I am terrible at geography and thought this would help me with a class I’m taking but I was mistaken. It’s like they took what they were in the process of developing years ago and just threw it up without even looking at it for a quick review. It takes a lot of disappointment for me to write reviews but this app is just so flat. Not Even Basic App Comforts (2020 iPad Pro) However, these things don’t compensate for the nonsensical UI/UX changes. There are a couple new features I appreciate, but they could’ve easily been incorporated without changing the UI completely! I’m happy they gave more control over custom layers, made Timelapse easy to use, and made a toggle to show areas with 3D coverage. And what happened to the Voyager section where you could view different interactive pre-made stories like sea level rise, deforestation, etc?! The slideshow for viewing photos is a complete downgrade because you can no longer zoom in on the pictures! The layers tab is cluttered.

Now I have this annoying UI element constantly taking up a ton of space where it can accidentally get tapped.

GOOGLE EARTH MAPS LIVE SATELLITE UPDATE

This update makes absolutely no sense and is a perfect example for app developers of what NOT to do - don’t dramatically change an app that worked great for years unless the changes clearly benefit users! These changes are not improvements! Why make a huge “Your projects” tab that takes up screen real estate without even giving us the option to completely hide it? My guess is that most mobile Google Earth users don’t even use projects regularly… I certainly don’t.

Google earth maps live satellite