A few days have gone by since the new and improved Mapquest.com was launched. The day of the release of their new product I was so excited about the new interface that I just felt like I needed to talk about it, I mean this new very improved interface offers so much cool new features and new tools that I felt like I just had to come to this website to tell everyone that loves maps and directions about it. I made a big mistake though, why? Because I did not have the chance to explore and test the new mapping software to the fullest, that day I just scanned the new site from top to bottom, I looked around for new icons, and I basically looked around for very obvious changes that could easily be identified. Although there were lots of obvious changes in things like the look, logo, icons, and tools, the real significant changes can be spotted once you use the new software and discover the real functionality of this marvellous technological advance, especially if you have used mapquest all your life, or if you have used it at least once before.
Mapquest driving directions and the mapquest route planner are so much better now that it is simply amazing! Now I have properly used this new online mapping software and I have to be honest about this, I don’t think i’ll be testing new web based mapping applications for while, i’m just too satisfied with mapquest.com right now. You know that the purpose of this website is to search for new online mapping softwares and test them, softwares that hand out driving directions and provide understandable easy to follow routes through high quality maps, softwares that have useful tools and useful information to make your daily chores a lot easier, well I think I have found all of these things in Mapquest and Google Maps so I think I don’t have to look any further, mission accomplished!
When you are searching for mapquest driving directions all you have to do is go to mapquest.com, there is a single search box where you can search for anything, driving directions, you can map locations, find hotels, you can virtually find any POI that you might be interested in finding. All the tools and features are still there, there are some new tools too! the cool thing is that you are probably thinking, how can mapquest handle even more tools than they had before? Some people might think that maybe the interface can get messy with so many tools and icons, but that it’s not the case at all, it is now easier to use, people can be more instinctive with this software so new users will know how to use it just by looking at it, it looks cleaner, and it even has a more professional look.
Getting mapquest driving directions it’s a lot easier now, once you get to the site you will see below the single search box a blue link with a plus sign that says “get directions”, you click on it once and another search box will be added so now you can input addresses in A and B to create routes, if you want you can add more stops by clicking on the same link that said “get directions” that now says “add another stop”, it is really simple. The cool thing is that once you get directions, the routes are displayed on the map at the right, on top of the map there are some icons for things like restaurants, gas stations, hotels, motels, atm’s, coffee shops, golf courses, hampton inn’s, holiday inn’s, parks, movie theaters, parking garages, bars, shopping malls, and live traffic, all you have to do is click on any of these things and they will be displayed where they are located if they are located along your route. When you click on get directions the estimated time between points will be calculated, you will see how much will it take to get to certain place in time units and you will also know how many miles or kilometers will it take for you to get there. You can save routes, maps, and driving directions to my maps very easily all you have to do is click on the red pin that says save to my maps. When creating routes you can choose to avoid highways, seasonal roads, tolls, ferries, country borders, and timed restrictions. You can also click on 360 view for street level imagery. Satellite and map views are also available.
A very important improvement in the new mapquest driving directions service is that you can drag and drog points to instantly change and create new routes, this was one feature that Google maps had that mapquest did not, so now mapquest is more complete than it was before, it is more accurate, the quality of the maps has improved, the routes are better, it has more tools, more features, and I can’t see any other web based mapping application getting near them in terms of quality, except for Google Maps that is, but the rest online mapping softwares are just falling way behind in this competition where Google and Mapquest will prevail simply because they are the ones trying to be the best, others are just trying improve and have the service included in the list of services that they offer just to say that they have it, but these two companies are just trying to “out do” each other to be the best and this is taking each their softwares and services to new heights. As users we will just have to sit, watch, and enjoy all of these free great tools that are at our disposal. Enjoy!
