Thursday, December 08, 2005
Windows Live Local launches: 45-degree view not especially useful
Windows Live Local launches: 45-degree view not especially useful
Yesterday when I mentioned Windows Live Local I was pretty excited about the 45-degree bird's-eye view feature. To us humans, a 45-degree view of a city is much more useful than an almost-90-degree satellite view, simply because we're much more used to looking at the sides of buildings rather than their roofs. Live Local, which launched in beta today as promised, has such views of 12 American cities (notably missing is Chicago), which are beautiful high-res images better than any other mapping service is offering right now, but for a couple reasons they're not nearly as useful as they could be.
First of all, the photos edges' aren't seamlessly connected. You can use the mouse to drag yourself around individual parts (between ten and twenty blocks on an edge, in my estimation) of a city, but when you get to the edge of that part you have to click to move to the next section. I'm sure this is for technical reasons, but the effect is jarring and disorienting and makes the whole experience feel like the old MapQuest days. Secondly, Live Local can show driving directions with 45-degree views, but it will only do so with a series of points; it doesn't connect the points with lines, making it impossible to follow your route on-screen and check out the landmarks along the way. I can't imagine anyone using Windows Live Local wouldn't just switch back to the ordinary map or satellite view when getting driving directions.
All in all, Windows Live Local does add some nice features (and even works in Firefox, albeit slowly), but Microsoft's big selling point, the 45-degree bird's eye view, though fun to play and surf landmarks with, is little more than a gimmick.
Filed under: Microsoft, Web services
Yesterday when I mentioned Windows Live Local I was pretty excited about the 45-degree bird's-eye view feature. To us humans, a 45-degree view of a city is much more useful than an almost-90-degree satellite view, simply because we're much more used to looking at the sides of buildings rather than their roofs. Live Local, which launched in beta today as promised, has such views of 12 American cities (notably missing is Chicago), which are beautiful high-res images better than any other mapping service is offering right now, but for a couple reasons they're not nearly as useful as they could be.First of all, the photos edges' aren't seamlessly connected. You can use the mouse to drag yourself around individual parts (between ten and twenty blocks on an edge, in my estimation) of a city, but when you get to the edge of that part you have to click to move to the next section. I'm sure this is for technical reasons, but the effect is jarring and disorienting and makes the whole experience feel like the old MapQuest days. Secondly, Live Local can show driving directions with 45-degree views, but it will only do so with a series of points; it doesn't connect the points with lines, making it impossible to follow your route on-screen and check out the landmarks along the way. I can't imagine anyone using Windows Live Local wouldn't just switch back to the ordinary map or satellite view when getting driving directions.
All in all, Windows Live Local does add some nice features (and even works in Firefox, albeit slowly), but Microsoft's big selling point, the 45-degree bird's eye view, though fun to play and surf landmarks with, is little more than a gimmick.
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[via Download Squad]
