Back in August 2020, Google began testing a seemingly Apple Maps-inspired map style that added darker and deeper landcover colors throughout the world:

While some areas, like deserts, looked much improved...

...other areas, like metropolitan areas, became harder to read:

And areas with lots of hills and mountains became especially cluttered and difficult to scan:

For the past three years, Google’s cartography has largely remained in this difficult-to-scan state—that is, until now. That’s because as of late August 2023, Google appears to be testing a new Apple Maps-inspired map style.

Unfortunately, Google’s new, in-testing map style is even worse than its old one. Here in Chicago, for instance, notice how much harder it is to read and scan the map:¹

And the same goes for New York City:

The new New York map above looks comically bad, almost like student-level work.

It’s difficult to understand Google’s motivations for making such garish changes—that is, until you zoom in further on New York or any of the other three cities where Google recently added road markings.

Here you see that Google seems to be attempting to mimic the look of Apple’s “Detailed City Experience”, particularly the roads:

If Google’s aim was to make its map look more like Apple’s, then it succeeded:

But in many other ways, the experience is even worse than before. Case-in-point: the traffic display, which is now even harder to parse:

UPDATE | November 2023

As of mid November 2023, Google Maps’s new map style now appears to be rolling out to all Google Maps users.

In the time since this page was first published, Google has made a number of changes and improvements to the new map style. For instance, here on the early zooms, Google has made the greens much ligther—in turn increasing the legibility of many of the map’s labels (e.g., “Seattle”, “Portland”, etc.)

The difference a couple zooms later is even more stark—such as here in the Mid Atlantic:

That said, the roads still seem too dark—especially the more minor, unlabeled ones. And notice that’s its still difficult to read many of the map’s labels, such as “Stamford”.

Google also made the greens used for parks much lighter, in turn making the map less cluttered and more readable:

In removing the clutter, however, Google has given background map a bit of a muddy look. The brownish commercial corridor shapes now fade in the background much more, making them harder to see. And this is still not a particularly attractive map.

Like London, San Francisco’s map looks equally muddy. Arterial roads now stand out way less than before—helping calm things down and making the text of the ads much easier to read:

New York’s streets are also much easier on the eyes now. And it seems that Google is also trying to reduce the amount of text on the map—notice on the right image that the handful of subway stations on the top of the map are now all abbreviated (unlike before):

And over in Chicago, the lighter greens used for parks help the traffic colors easier to discern:

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1  Here’s a reminder of how legible and readable Google Maps used to be (particularly back in 2018):

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