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Weird result on Google Street View on my iPad.

This is the first time I have seen this. I enjoy checking out places we will stay ahead of time on street view, and especially "walking" around Venice. Only my older (2010) iPad (yes I have more than one, don't ask) has Street View, and it has always worked fine.

Today I went to look at a hotel near the train station in Basel and I can only get interior views. I have seen the sauna, a massage room ( complete with acupuncture posters), a guest room, the breakfast room, and the restaurant. But no view of the exterior, no matter where on the street I drop the pin. This is true of other spots along the same street, Centralbahnstrasse. ( one spot lands me inside a covered arcade, at the entrance to a dentist office).

If I drop the pin away from the train station, I get regular (exterior) street views. Anyone know what is going on?

Posted by
15680 posts

Lola, I think that's because that street - or that part of the street - hasn't been street-level mapped. When I pull up google maps for Centralbahnstrasse and click on the little person icon that activates mapped lines - meaning they can be virtually walked or driven - a lot of that street doesn't have that line. There are, however, the small circles which indicate still shots of random places (store fronts, restaurants interiors, etc) on that street which have been contributed.

Running into areas which haven't been street-level mapped isn't all that unusual, especially when they are pedestrian-only routes. This one isn't but there's probably some reason why it wasn't filmed.

Posted by
222 posts

Looking at Google Maps on the computer it shows there are many streets in that area, and Basel in general, where street view is only available on a portion of the street. Not knowing where your hotel is I wonder if this may be the problem. No street view available for that part of the street, only still pictures.

Posted by
8889 posts

Street view in Basel is very limited, it only has parts of some streets. Most of the city centre is missing, probably because it is pedestrianised and the Google car was not allowed. They could have used a bike, but for some reason they didn't.
The area around the station (Centralbahnplatz) is trams, taxis and deliveries only and is equally missing.

If you hover the little man over the map, the streets which are covered display in blue lines.

There is no Google Street view in Germany, it is banned due to privacy laws.

Posted by
16028 posts

This is very interesting! The interior views I can see can be moved for a 360 degree view, including the sauna area, but there are no people in the views as there are with street view.

Google must have persuaded Germany to modify the law somewhat, As I can get good street views around Frankfurt. But for Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I can only get the interior views of hotels near where I drop the pin, no exteriors.

Posted by
15680 posts

Google must have persuaded Germany to modify the law somewhat, As I
can get good street views around Frankfurt.

Same for Munich. There's quite a lot of street views showing although they're scarce within a small bullseye of the very center.

Posted by
924 posts

Fyi, the views of commercial interiors are provided by the commercial entity (in this case, the hotel) directly to Google. For example, we (the Rick Steves Travel Center in Edmonds, WA) have the option of submitting images of the interior of our store to Google for this sort of use. Thus, it makes sense that you could see images of the hotel interior, but not street-view images of the exterior if Google hasn't brought one of their cars by to snap photos. More info about how this works: https://www.google.com/streetview/hire/

Posted by
552 posts

I can get street view in Hannover, with some specific houses and signs blurred out, which I assume individuals can request. I know when I mentioned to a non-computer user German friend of mine, she was appalled at the invasion of privacy.