Interesting, do you mean contrast between non-roads and roads, or between map and text? I think (bear in mind I have some color blindness) that it's gone from a low-contrast road grid with high contrast text to a high-contrast road grid with low-contrast text.

It would be easier to trace the shape of the roads, but that's not how I personally use a map. I'm much more focused on the name of a neighborhood or the name of a road, and its relative position.

Seems like the road text still needs some fixing/adjustments, assuming they keep that light-gray blueish road color.

The apple map road color is a lot darker, creating more context. For the google map road color, they'd almost need to use something like a yellow text perhaps.

I stopped using google map to navigate while driving due to the low contrast issue. I used to be able to scan the map and figure out which fork I should take. with the current google map, I have to stare at it for a fraction of a second to be sure. Now I use Apple map and works much better for me.

I regularly use the map to plan events and the inability to see roads clearly makes it difficult. Sometimes small paths won’t show up until you zoom in all the way and even then they’re kind of lost in the bad contrast.

Maps nowadays look beautiful compared to the old style paper maps, but are comparatively unusable.