this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I'm pretty sure this is A/B testing on their part, but curious to see if anyone else is in that case

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[–] mercator_rejection 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now this is the type of conversation I can get behind!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Username definitely checks out!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Eh? It's been a globe for years and years. You can even zoom out and view other planets and moons.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Probably country dependant, I have been stuck with Mercator for the last few years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Also depends on the platform, the mobile app is the last bastion of flat-earth truth /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If you turn on satellite and zoom out you even see current cloud cover

[–] mo_ztt 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've definitely seen this before (if you zoom out beyond the level where a projection makes sense, it switches to a globe). I was actually a little surprised when I tried it just now, and it stayed on the projection at any zoom level; I thought the globe was the only behavior until I read this and checked it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I think it does this on desktop but not on mobile. I remember it already doing this like 10 years ago

[–] nilaus 5 points 1 year ago

Forgot google maps was on Desktop 😅

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

For me, it's gone back and forth between a globe and a projection a few times over the past 5-10 years or so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It was a globe forever on desktop. Changes to a projection when you zoom in enough.

They surely have a fallback in case someone's PC did not support rendering the globe fast enough

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've seen it before, but never thought to seek out the projection, but I could set the maps to "Globe View" under the layers button in the down left corner. It's much nicer now :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

never in my life have I seed this

[–] nxfsi -4 points 1 year ago

Mercator projection is best, with gnomonic and equirectangular coming in at distant second and third. Globe perspective projection has niche uses. All others are useless/solve a problem that is irrelevant.