Flyover Practical Applications

[shathis]

A lot has been said about Flyover being a gimmick. Since it cannot go down to street level in detail, it could definitely be said that it has no practical application to anyone but pilots.

What I'm curious to is the real-world applications that can be practically useful to a user. Not just showing off graphics hardware, someone who can actually make real usage of it on a daily basis, like Street View. Street View was gimmicky, but it DID come in handy to a lot of folks who needed to confirm addresses with visual cues, or walkers finding the right turn. The street level eye was key for that.

I'm willing to hear, I'm not going to condemn it outright... there's very likely a use I haven't considered.

 

[Guacho]

Disagree that streetview jn google is gimmicky... but the flyover feature is more like a show off feature and I dont see myself using it that much..

 

[icebox93]

Street view is hardly a gimmick. It allows you to see a photo of the area you're searching, which can greatly help in orienting yourself in an unfamiliar area when planning a trip. It also helps with turn by turn directions. Turn left at 45th st, sure, but if you have street view you can see what that intersection looks like, again helping with orientation; you're not dependent on seeing the street sign if you know there's a citgo station and mcdonalds at the corner. Think about how people give directions "turn left at the citgo, that's 45th street. Stay on 45th to etc"

Flyover may be able to help with that sort of situation as well. Can flyover be used as a current map view? if so, I could see people using that as a view when driving a city. It's not too different from some gps map modes. You'd need something like ios5 maps' hybrid view for it to be more useful that way though.