Why does the satellite basemap in the developer APIs/SDKs look different than what I see in the Google Maps applications?

The imagery available in the Google Maps developer APIs/SDKs may differ from what you see in Google's first-party Google Maps applications (google.com or Google Maps Android/iOS apps). Imagery may have been acquired at a different time and/or with different camera technologies. As a result, there can be big differences in Google imagery depending on how you're viewing it.

Google has three different kinds of imagery:

• Satellite
• 45-degree
• 3D (only available on google.com and in Google apps)

All three types will exist in most places, and any or all of them may be from different acquisitions. So it's possible to have three different views of the same location across different Google products.

In an area with recent construction, you may see and empty lot in one view and a new building in another. In this example, the 45-degree imagery (left) does not show the newly-constructed retirement home visible in the satellite imagery (right).