Microsoft Previews Mapping Improvements
Microsoft’s Live Search Maps often feels like an also-run in a space dominated by Google, MapQuest and Yahoo, but a recent preview glimpse of coming features reveal that Live Search Maps has a few tricks up its sleeve.
A post on the LiveSide Blog has some screenshots (including the one above) of features that are slated for release in “the next few weeks.” Among the noticeable changes are some interface elements that bring Live Search Maps inline with the recent Live Search makeover — namely a single unified search box, rather than the confusing two box look that you’ll see on the site at the moment.
The nicest looking feature in the coming updates for Live Search Maps is the ability to collapse driving directions.
With any mapping service you inevitably get some very detailed directions you don’t need — like how to get to the highway from your house, which you’ve probably done thousands of times. Live Search Maps can now condense that information and collapse it out of view, allowing you to focus on the part of the directions you actually need. Not only does it make for a cleaner display, it saves some paper if you’re printing the directions.
Another welcome change is that Live Search Maps is shrinking the ginormous and annoying navigation panel (which currently covers a significant portion of the map when you’re trying to navigate around a map) with a very simple compass-like navigator in the upper left corner.
None of these changes are groundbreaking and Live Search Maps still lacks some of the features found on other mapping services, but these improvements are the kind of subtle UI changes that make using the service even easier.
Check out the Liveside post for more details and we’ll be sure to test drive the new features as soon as they go public.
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