Opening Google maps, the text entry is editable far, far before when it should be. As soon as the page loads, I can start typing. Then the JavaScript starts running, and helpfully selects the text entry, placing the cursor at the beginning of the text field. Then some cached suggestion loads, inserting some suggested search for the area being viewed.

The end result is that anything I type gets jumbled or overwritten multiple times before the page settles down and can actually be used.

This is the general curse of async UI these days, and it's everywhere from the web to native desktop apps to the OS itself.

Obviously, it can be done right, but it seems that most devs who are so eager to jump on the async bandwagon have no idea that they have to make that effort now.

That's far from being only a Chrome problem. That extremely irritating behavior is going to be with us until OS developers see the light and we get hard/soft realtime GUIs.