They may only have a TV and DVD Player is the answer.

Bugger. Completely forgot that.

I like the new Google maps interface.

Bristol, I think Burks has hit the nail on the head. More and more individuals are not using Google maps simply to find a location (street name and number) or driving directions, but to find a "datapoint" on one of many hundreds of layers of data which use Google's base map as their referencing or indexing system. Old-school map users are a vanishing breed (sadly, as I count myself among them - I'd still much rather look at a map than rely on a sat-nav).

Think of Google Maps as a geographically-indexed search tool rather than purely a navigation aid and it begins to make more sense. Type what you are looking for in the search bar on the interface you dislike so intensely, and the answers will pop up as lollipops on the map. If what you are looking for is an address, then the map will simply centre on that location.

A map is simply a tool for presenting data in a geographical way - all Google does is to enable the user to choose which layers of information to show. The classic Ordnance Survey maps are a case in point: some of the data they chose to show were rural pubs and inns, and post offices. But they didn't show licensed restaurants, hotels or banks, which offer many of the same services as pubs or post offices. Why was that the case? Because that was the set of data deemed to be most useful by the powers that be. Churches were categorised as having steeples, towers or neither to help with visual orientation - a Google map doesn't need that because you have aerial and street level photography in a lot of places (and on Bing you now have 4-axis oblique photography too, which adds another layer of information to the mix).

By the way, if you don't want the search tools to obscure your view of the map, then dragging (panning) the map a small distance in any direction will roll everything up into the single search bar, with all the extraneous information disappearing.

If their experience is that gives them more than the options already available then fair enough.

For them.

I don't know that people who want to see where a place is are a vanishing breed though.

But take away ease of access and they may die off even more.

You just took me back to my schooldays.

Thanks. That might be a compromise if the original really does disappear.

The younger generation (let's say 20 and below) may well lose interest in maps. They will have been brought up to use maps as a "visual data layer" in the way OakV describes, and perhaps not see any point in studying maps to construct mental maps in their head. With mobile computing, there really is far less need.

I use Google maps for most of my mapping/directional needs but I much prefer a physical map as opposed to SatNav. If I use Google maps to find out how to get somewhere I will store the directions in my head ad print the map as back up rather than print the turn by turn directions.

It frustrates me how people have no idea how to explain to to get to places they go to on a regular basis as they just follow the voice in their car! Or those who ask for post codes for everywhere they go so they can put it in their SatNav.

Well you're almost younger generation if I recall, so that's encouraging.

SatNavs and mobiles are not great for digital maps, but large tablets definitely are. Better than the paper variety by far.