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by Elite 5757 days ago
The concept doesn't translate for maps.

An address as entered from left-to-right goes from the very specific to the general. Therefore all the api calls and screen updating you make are completely irrelevant until I type in my city half -way through.

4 comments

google maps on my android phone does this type of instant-search recommendation and i always thought it was stupid, too. i just typed in "1218" on it and it's trying to recommend me "1218 grand-saconnex, switzerland" (i live in the united states).

if it's going to do search recommendations, it should at least do a regional geo-ip/gps lookup and offer suggestions i'd probably be driving to.

That is possible, but when I was making this, I didn't want to use server-side technologies (php) because I wanted it to stay fast, which would have been necessary to determine your approximate location and get the GeoID prior to page generation.

It is easily possible, however, it just would have been soooo slow in comparison.

Then don't use php... It's possible to grab user location via javascript, the client just needs a compatible browser. I'd say judging by the people who would stumble upon your project more than half would have a browser capable of grabbing location via javascript.
I only typed in my house number and 2/3 of my road and got the QUERY_LIMIT, but the result was correct with no City or State. I do live on a road with a very unique name though.
You live on Satellite Tracking Station Road?
Well, there goes trying to hide my identity on HN...
Although if you could get people to order their search queries by most important to least important, like regular search, it would probably work fine.
It semi does, I was just typing city and country names and enjoying the instant snap to.