At a dinner with friends on Thursday night a couple of people were arguing about the relationship and distance between two towns in Israel (Haifa and Sefat). I pulled out my laptop and went to Google Maps to settle the dispute. But here’s what showed up:
I then when to Live Maps and found this:
And with this level of detail we were able to settle the argument:
I knew there had been security issues and concerns about mapping Israel, but I was surprised to see basic geographic detail missing on Google Maps.
July 7, 2008 at 4:02 pm |
Hi Greg – with Live Maps you can also calculate the distance by getting intercity driving directions or using the drawing tools. When you draw a line or shape, Live Maps shows you its distance or area/perimeter. details here:
http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!19406.entry
regards,
Steve Lombardi
Virtual Earth Program Manager
stevelom a microsoft d com
July 7, 2008 at 5:26 pm |
Greg, this is indeed frustrating – for a country that has so many technology companies in the local / mobile space, you would expect Google (that also has a large R&D center in Israel) would provide better service in Israel.
BTW, I use http://maps.walla.co.il which is almost comparable with Google Maps’ service in the US.
Hanan
http://www.palore.com
August 8, 2008 at 7:28 pm |
google maps used to have great coverage in israel – but its either something to do with security / political / business deals going on behind the scenes that have caused them to turn off all maps of Israel.
September 3, 2008 at 9:10 am |
Some time ago I wrote to Google regarding the fact that Jerusalem does not appear in their Middle East map. No acknowledgement received, of course. Since then I check to see whether a miracle happened and only today I found the “Live Maps”. Does it mean that the other is a “Dead Map”? It is likely that political and economical reasons are the answer.
In “Masa acher” , an Israeli site, you can not find Jerusalem either! They sure copied the maps from Google. Unbelievable eh?
December 30, 2008 at 6:56 pm |
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