Made a last minute decision to join my parents on a trip to Tibet this week. Until now I have only made use of Google Maps. Having seen the detail in Microsoft's Live Search Maps, I decided to test it out. The results are shown below.
Google Maps
MS Live Search Maps
First, Live Search Maps offer more labeling detail than Google Maps. The sheer number of labeled city names and provincial information makes eyeballing cities a possibility. Furthermore, the detail extends to the lines drawn around the map. The total straight line distance is reported. However, searching for places is effectively monolingual. Input of Chinese text into the search bar offers no results. On the other hand, text of other languages work well in Google Maps and enables faster placing of pins, saving eyeballing time.
Second and most important of all, there is no easy way to embed Live Search Maps. That is the reason why it is an image above. Embedding requires writing your own Javascript methods that call the Live Search Maps API along with a good guess of the coordinates. This is a far cry from Google Maps that just generates html code on the fly.
Last, those red pins are just ugly.
Second and most important of all, there is no easy way to embed Live Search Maps. That is the reason why it is an image above. Embedding requires writing your own Javascript methods that call the Live Search Maps API along with a good guess of the coordinates. This is a far cry from Google Maps that just generates html code on the fly.
Last, those red pins are just ugly.
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