Google is becoming a bigger disappointment every day, today started off similar. This morning I saw there where some updates on my android phone, so I installed them both on my tablet and on my phone. One of the updates was Maps, so quickly checking the application made clear the completely overhauled the GUI, it seems a lot more minimalistic now. Trying out a few things I noticed:

• I cannot pick one point on the map, navigate to another point on the map by just clicking on that point. You can select one point, click ‘route’ and then it only allows you to enter the name where you want to navigate from/to often I just want to hit a point on the map. I mostly use this option on the PC in the web browser, so I am not sure if this was here before.

• No more off-line maps. WTH!!!! THIS WAS THE KEY FEATURE. I use this one so much. I navigate using my tablet, having no 3g, I would download the map at home or at hotel. This has been so useful. WHY GOOGLE WHY!!! For work I often-ish have to visit foreign cities, I always used my tablet to find my way. Because (except for Ouluh) I have no ‘mobile’ Internet there. (given the prices for roaming.)

So in the past time the following things I used where stopped:

• Google Apps no longer free. Luckily my free account persists. I do not like this change, but I can understand it.
• Google Reader. Though in the end, I am quiet happy running my own tt-rss.
• Google Task. Hangout is just terrible and stopping xmpp support is gonna be a problem. Used this a lot.
• Maps no longer useful. Key feature removed.

To make a long rant short, I am going to try out the different openstreetmaps viewers for android. I also use these maps on my garmin, so they should be more then sufficient.

Suggestions are welcome. (qball at gmpclient dot org)