Some of us have become so reliant on Google Maps that we use the app even on roads we've navigated hundreds of times before. It shows us the way, it tells us about traffic, road closures, alternative routes, congestion, and delay times, and it also alleviates some of that on-road anxiety for us. It offers us that "red के आगे blue है" sort of reassurance. However, Google Maps is about more than just traffic jams – as Flight Radar tweeted:
When Google Maps goes off, this impacts the world.
A flight tracker app is most useful for deciding when to leave for the airport to pick someone up. It tells us about when a flight took off, landed, delays, etc. Google Maps impacts the working of such apps as FlightRadar24 as well.
For some, it was a panic situation!
If there is such a thing. This is the sort of Map app screen I remember seeing when I spent a week in Ladakh where there was no cell coverage.
…It doesn’t exist.
Of course, there was the odd conspiracy theory.
What happened, wondered people. Suddenly some were having to resort to reading road signs and other such primitive methods of navigation.
…Use Apple Maps! It is well known in the meme world, that Apple Maps is rubbish. Some map users don’t know it even exists.
People may turn to Apple maps only as a very poor last resort when Google Maps is unavailable and when all other options have been exhausted.
People were not pleased to have to rely on Apple Maps – having to reinstall that which they had uninstalled.
Apple Maps is less reliable and more fiddly than Google Maps feel a lot of users.
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer known for leading the first ever circumnavigation of the globe from 1519 to 1522
Introverts didn’t mind one way or another – some of those guys weren't going anywhere anyway.
Once upon a time, people used MapQuest.
Actual maps
Some were relying on Google to get to a new or unfamiliar place or taking a new road
People literally risked getting lost.
Google Maps was up and available within a few hours. However, the outage served to remind us about how very reliant we all are on Google for so many things – including getting from A to B.
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