Google-maps – How does Google Maps see the hardware details (and decides to disable 3D view)

The satellite view is a static image. It will get updated after a period of time (known only to Google) if there is a suitable image available. That image will have to have less than a certain percentage (again known only to Google) of cloud cover so that most, if not all, of the ground is visible.

Images of urban areas will need less cloud cover than rural areas - as there is more to see.

One thing to consider is that Google may well be looking for public domain or low cost imagery as there will be a lot of images required to cover the whole globe at high resolution. While Google does earn a lot of money from it's services they still need to keep costs down. These images are more likely to be older images, the more recent ones are more valuable.

One way is to add vector=0 to the end of your URL string parameters. So your maps URL would be http://maps.google.com/?vector=0. This will tell the maps not to use MapsGL.

Alternatively, if you want to switch back to MapsGL, put vector=1 in your URL.