Google Maps Cleans Up Its Act

Google Maps (Earth) is far and away the company’s most successful product after search. It is now the second most popular mapping service online (Mapquest still leads) and the most popular mobile mapping tool (Mapquest Mobile is second), according to comScore.

Every few months, it seems, Google “tweaks” the service, adding new features here and there (walking directions were added last week). Today’s feature-add is a clean up of the interface, which makes it slightly larger, easier to expand to full screen, and removes a bit of what Google itself calls “the clutter” of the previous UI.

Directions, MyMaps, Print, Link, and Send have been reorganized and are now highlighted by a blue bar at the top of the map:

In addition, the directions fields appear to have been changed:

It also seemed to load faster and perform a bit better for me.