I mean, ability to pinch zoom into satellite photo of my neighborhood is awesome and such, but I'd change it any day for beautiful (and correct!) offline cartography like Times Atlas.
While it’s certainly possible to come up with good algorithms, and outfits like Google Maps and Bing Maps have, maps are judged by esthetics and practical usability as well as quantitative criteria[0], so the best results are likely to be hand-tuned.
0. Maps as opposed to the underlying GIS data, which is easier to judge solely by whether it’s complete, precise, and accurate.
I mean, even the static scan of paper maps with dynamically resizable labels will often times do better than what we have on screens right now.
I certainly agree that onscreen mapping could be a lot more sophisticated than it is now without too much strain on even mobile devices’ hardware and connections.
Thanks for the push!
Are you implying that offline cartography like Time Atlas do not come with errors? Both online and offline come with tons of errors, the difference is that online maps get corrected faster.