> The death of Google Trips is part of Google's big travel revamp. The company recently launched the Google Travel website, which in addition to most of the Trips information, also serves as (wait for it...) a search engine for hotels, flights, and travel agency-style combo bookings... Google's message notes that "many"—not "all"—of Trips' features will "live on in other Google products." Apparently those two features are Google Maps and Google Search.
So... they've just reorganized most of the features to different websites, instead of keeping them locked in an app you have to download.
Doesn't seem that bad. I don't think this really counts as a noteworthy "dead" product, just a refactoring of features across properties.
Somewhat better, maybe. It now allows me to download an area large enough to fit my entire home town. Still doesn't allow an entire country or even more, probably cause of bigger file size / more detail than the competitor i use.
But most importantly: It still requires me to sign into a google account to download an area.
Wow I missed that it requires you to sign in. I retract my statement that it has gotten better. Google can go to hell with requiring a sign in for everything.
I mean it's great to have a backup map if you go outside of cellular coverage. It works well overseas too, so you can save data and preload the map, or just use it offline entirely while you're travelling.
All the apps I have seen have terrible search. In Google I can type in "xxx Street Burbank" and will get a result. In OSM I have to go through state, city, zip and know all that stuff. Much worse than google Maps.
I'm happy google earth is stuck in time and offline. Such a powerful piece of software, like an arcGIS-lite. I get a file tree with folders and subfolders and subsubfolders and points of interests with metadata and notes and layers of everything and anything and I can load other people's content too?? In case you can't tell, it's my favorite google product by far, and they can't ever take it away from me because I have it on my local drive.
It seems like Google exploded pretty quickly, so I bet there were a lot of disconnected apps being developed at the same time. I think as they continue growing they realize that some apps duplicate features, or have features that may be better served from other, bigger apps (in this case, maps may be better suited for some of trips' features).
I worked at Intuit for a bit, and with only a handful of products they were experiencing the same thing. I can only imagine trying to coordinate so many teams across such an enormous organization.
So... they've just reorganized most of the features to different websites, instead of keeping them locked in an app you have to download.
Doesn't seem that bad. I don't think this really counts as a noteworthy "dead" product, just a refactoring of features across properties.