Should you really feel like there’s one thing barely completely different about Google Maps for the time being, you’re not imagining it – Google has redesigned the pins utilized in Maps to focus on eating places, seashores, and different sights, giving a lot of them a brand new form and set of colours. Whereas the change is delicate, it’s arduous to overlook when you discover it.
Beforehand, pins on Google Maps would have a tall, slender stem that got here to a pointy level on the pinned location. The colour of the pin, in the meantime, was uniform alongside its complete size. Now, although, that’s all modified. Pins are a lot shorter and are available to a thick, rounded level on the backside. Every pin makes use of a white background, with its icon sitting inside a coloured circle inside the pin itself.
This alteration brings pins consistent with different Google Maps accoutrements, comparable to stars, flags and hearts. Whereas they’re not fairly the identical – these components are totally round, and not using a pin form on their backside edges – all of them now characteristic icons inside coloured circles, with a white border across the periphery. That makes the app much more uniform when it comes to how its visible components look – if something, the outdated pin design caught out like a sore thumb – though it would make it a bit more durable to differentiate pins from the opposite on-screen gadgets, particularly when you’re a very busy space.
Elsewhere, some pin sorts have had their colours adjusted. Museums, for instance, now are available in purple as a substitute of teal. Dropped pins – that’s, ones you create your self – have been additionally nonetheless utilizing the outdated, pointed design on the time of writing.
A small however noticeable tweak
This is not the one change Google has rolled out in latest weeks. On the finish of July, the search large modified the look of Google Maps’ backside bar inside the cell app, eradicating just a few gadgets to current a less complicated view. It’s additionally introduced improved parking help to the app, in addition to augmented actuality views of historic landmarks.
And final 12 months, Google Maps’ total look received a significant makeover, with new colours getting used that broke with the long-standing colour scheme of the app. That change proved to be divisive, with some customers complaining that it made the app tougher to make use of.
It’s unlikely that the brand new pin design will fire up fairly a lot ire, on condition that it solely impacts one small facet of the expertise. One motive for the change could possibly be that it would permit Google Maps to suit extra pins on the display screen without delay, as the brand new pin design is a contact extra compact than the outdated look.
Since this seems to be a server-side change, you shouldn’t have to replace your app to see the brand new pin design – simply fireplace up Google Maps and have a look.
