What do you think about Google Maps? Sometimes you think the top of the map is full of icons and buttons? Maybe you will change your mind after trying Baidu Maps. The Chinese equivalent of Google Maps.

In China, Google Maps works averagely (I’m not saying it’s bad), but that’s not a problem because there are apps like Baidu Maps instead. This is China’s Google Maps and it’s intriguing The design is completely different and even more intense.

This is Google Maps of China

Every place has its own traditions when it comes to app design, too. In the West, this is more evident in Android’s layers of customization; Traditional Chinese layers like MIUI, EMUI or ColorOS They came much more overloaded than pure or lightly modified Android like the Pixel.

A way to experience it first hand Try Baidu MapsAlthough the app store in question is not active in China, it can be downloaded from Google Play. Until 2016, Baidu Maps only showed maps of China, Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong, but today its maps cover almost the entire world.

Buttons. Buttons everywhere.

Experience with Baidu Maps rapidly overwhelming and not only because of the language (the app is only available in Chinese). The map is not very detailed in Spain, which contrasts with the number of buttons and elements shown at the top:

• Top search bar with robot and voice search.
• A circular banner with a face famous Whose voice can you use for navigation?
• Layers button.
• A shortcut bar for tools like text translations, routes, and other “mini apps.”
• A collection of web articles about events or destinations in the area.
• A “Like” button, the purpose of which I don’t know because it disappeared later.

It all takes some adaptation, though, as overlapping and unnecessary buttons can be a bit harder to digest. If you’re lucky, a text banner that says things like “Unlock summer hotel bookings” can be covered up with a label. other floating icons cannot be removed, TikTok style. No thanks.

Custom sounds that can be activated with the floating button that for some reason won’t disappear

Of course, it’s all about adapting and the truth is that the application also has many settings and options where we can try to tame its style a little and understanding the language can also help. But without understanding a single word, the big difference to Google Maps is obvious: Everything has many, many buttons, and you don’t always know where they’re taking you. Sometimes it’s a setting in the app, and sometimes you’ll read a travel blog about a destination or get a discount when you book a hotel.

The appearance itself is specific to Chinese practices, more intense and involving Much more than the Material Design and Material that you have accustomed us to all these years. If you have a mobile with a recharged Chinese layer or if you have used applications like Zepp or Xiaomi Home, you may already be somewhat familiar with this style, but it has been released even more in China.

One moment you’re planning a route, the next moment you’re enjoying attractive discounts on taxis in 40 easy steps.

Baidu Maps is China’s Google Maps, but the main difference is that Google Maps is “satisfied” with being a navigation and mapping app, Baidu Maps wants to be a super appthere are pros and cons to this. The pros are that you get a lot of maps and travel-related content in one way or another; the cons are that all of these extras have to be accessible from one place, and what we end up with is a little monster rather than an elegant all-in-one app. Additionally, much of this extra content is essentially web pages loaded into a built-in browser, and the experience isn’t the same.

On Baidu Maps we find extras such as a list of useful phrases for traveling (in Chinese). <-> English) and a series of travel blog articles about the place we saw, as well as a system of money and rewards with which we can unlock topics, among other things. To have, There are up to a bunch of widgets: 15 in total.

Pop-up window with hotel guide introduction, a list of useful travel phrases (in English), and a collection of travel blogs. Everything accessible from Baidu Maps

really? Two different ways to understand Android and it’s completely valid, which shows us how important the work Google has done is: they are based on the same Android source code, but the result is very different.

In the West, Google is “leading” by example with the different versions of “Android with Google” launched and simpler and less intensive applications. Other standards are also applied in China This makes the apps nearly impossible for us to use, and not just because of the language. From now on, I will no longer complain about Google Maps being too visually noisy.

Xataka on Android | In China, there’s an app for everything: it’s called WeChat and that’s all you can do with it