The other day in Quora we had this nice little chat about whether or not Google Maps, and Apple’s disastrous counterpart, was a relevant piece of cartography. My opinion was that I don’t believe they are, as they are tools that were conceived as a means for the user to expand their awareness of their local businesses, attractions and services, as well as for guiding people across streets. They lack the aesthetical component, the functionality and simplicity of a proper map or an atlas so they shouldn’t be seen as such.
I like, though, that MapBox, my new favourite company (and potential victim of my harassments jobseeking-wise), is trying its best to merge both worlds. They very recently released the terrain data for their MapBox Streets web application and the sharpness of the relief and its shades looks absolutely ace. I’m working on a couple of maps that use terrain data and I’ll be showing them soon, so this is good inspiration.
Did I hear… inspiration? Oh yes! The tangential relation between the topic of this post and my research interest towards my degree project means that this is post #4 for Ayfaw Kucha! YAHAHAAAA
