Google flights is fantastic. Don't know if it is "the best-designed thing I've ever used", but it is on top of my mind as I just used it yesterday. Google doesn't get enough credit for the things that they did do well - including Search and Maps.
Another is Macbooks - the pre-2015 ones at least. I haven't used the latest M1 ones, which I hear great things about. The Aluminum body, the flawless screen, magsafe, great sound - there is so many things I love about Macbook hardware. Such a beautiful marriage of form and function.
I must disagree with you on maps. Google maps is a fantastic geographic aware search.
It is a horrific map. On any given screen there is an 80% chance that the major road I'm interested in is not labeled. Finding the name of a relevant cross street is a nightmare.
I feel like it used to be better. Way better. I think the map aspect has been dropped entirely as a real feature now that they supply directions (search) primarily instead.
I have OSM and Google maps installed. If I'm trying to navigate to a specific town or street, I'll use OSM because it's "just a map" that isn't trying to sell me shit. But if I'm looking for a business (restaurant, shop etc) I'll always use Google Maps because they're trying to sell me shit, and because OSM is absolutely pitiful in this regard.
I have tried to help out here by adding business in my area but the process of slow. Not sure who is in charge of approvals. Google, on the other hand, almost defaults businesses to being on the map even when they don't want to be. (My wife ruins a small business that doesn't have a bricks and mortar store - it's just online. Since it's registered to our home address, she absolutely didn't want it in Google Maps, but it took a good bit of clicking to get it off the map. Hence, they're reliable A.F. for finding businesses, even if they don't want to be found
> I have tried to help out here by adding business in my area but the process of slow. Not sure who is in charge of approvals.
There are no approvals at all. After you submit your changeset, it's in the primary public database. Some relatively short time after that, the affected tiles are rerendered and the change is visible on the main map layer (Mapnik) on openstreetmap.org. But if you use an application (e.g. OsmAnd) or some third-party map rendering (e.g. by Mapbox), the changes might take quite some time to get there.
I agree with this 100%. And there needs to be something in the design to allow you to zoom the text size. It's comical to witness myself trying to read too small text and reflexively zooming only to have the same sized font.
Even worse, it seems almost random which zoom levels have text. Often, especially for train line and station names, zooming in makes the text disappear!
Agreed. As my eyesight has gotten worse, I rely more and more on being able to do a quick pinch-to-zoom to read small type. Ironically, this pushes me away from native apps and onto the mobile browser!
If the alternatives include "Google Maps from about 6 years ago", then yes, yes I have.
I don't really fault Google that much for their design decisions here, as Maps have really morphed into "Local Search", which makes sense for most use cases, but I agree with the GP, if you are just, for example, wanting to look at a map of a new area (i.e. not where you live), I think Maps is worse than it was some years ago.
I just got an M1 Macbook Air this week to replace my 2014 Macbook Pro. Performance is cool (lots has already been documented about that), but the battery life is on another level. Charged it on 4 days ago and after about 7 hours of use, it's still at 48% at the time of writing this post. Ditto to what you said about "a beautiful marriage of form and function".
Typing from M1 MBA I picked this weekend. I don't think I enjoyed any device since 2012 MBA so much. Love keyboard, unlock by watch, portability, and unparalleled battery life. Screen is a compromise (coming from 2019 MBP 16") but I am okay with that.
It's great that exists (I have long legs), but an extension for...legroom? Why is something that important treated as esoteric and not a native search feature or setting?
I have multiple close family members who are still using the old Magsafe Macbook Airs. I ask them every year if they want to upgrade to a newer model, and they decline, they just love the laptop. I replaced the battery in each one to the OWC upgraded battery kit.
One incredibly irritating thing about Google Flights is it ignores and overrides my currency settings every time. And often my language settings too.
At least on Safari.
No combination of being logged into Google and selecting the currency in the sidebar will result in the currency, rather than the local currency, being set for next visit.
That means every single use of Google flights involves going to the sidebar to set currency, either first or more likely upon searching.
One time I was in a foreign country but looking for hotels on Google Maps for a future weekend getaway in my home country. Despite being logged in and Google having my home address, and with each account needing a country to comply with differing data protection laws, it was still showing me prices for hotels in my home country in the foreign country's currency. Helpful? Not!
Recently bought transatlantic flights through Google Flights and it gave better results than all the traditional players in the space (skyscanner, kayak, etc). It's not just something to pad out search results, they put some effort into it.
Also, for every single flight they have the mass of carbon emissions displayed right next to it? Seeing that huge figure (1 ton!) definitely made me more hesitant to fly. Could this be... an altruistic design decision? From Google?
New MacBooks seem to be good again, especially the model with MagSafe. However, non-replaceable SSDs is a big deal for me. I know that a MacBook can have a long life span, but I'm not sure how long its SSD will work with any issues.
Still using my ~10 year old MacbookPro pretty much every day. The little plastic feet have fallen off and I'm on my second power adapter (and that is looking a bit ropey), otherwise it still works great.
Another is Macbooks - the pre-2015 ones at least. I haven't used the latest M1 ones, which I hear great things about. The Aluminum body, the flawless screen, magsafe, great sound - there is so many things I love about Macbook hardware. Such a beautiful marriage of form and function.