Keeping up with the various digital globe products from companies such as Google, Microsoft and more
Last week on Google Earth Blog we…
You can read more over at GEarthBlog.com.
It’s been rumored for a while, and we won’t know for sure until this summer, but it appears that Apple is dropping Google Maps from the iPhone and iPad in favor of an in-house solution.
Over the past few years Apple has purchased companies such as Placebase, C3 Technologies and Poly9, and it’s thought that they’ve successfully combined those technologies in a way that works quite well on the iPhone. The new 3D mode is thought to be coming straight from C3 Technologies, which has a pretty nice system. Here is a mock-up from 9to5Mac that shows the potential difference between the old and new system:
The result of this would be quite interesting. There is certainly a lot of potential for them to do some great things, and losing the Google Maps integration is likely step when you consider the competition between Android and Apple.
iOS 6 is expected to be unveiled at Apple’s WWDC in June, so we’ll find out for sure then!
A few cool things to point you toward today:
More Cities get “Aerial View” in Google Maps — Portland, OR and Sacramento and Oakland, CA all have new “bird’s eye” imagery from Google.
National Geographic launches iPhone app — It allows a variety of mapping sources, styles and other cool stuff.
Micello Launches “Google Maps for the Indoors” — This thing could be very cool if they can expand their coverage. They have “over 250″ maps so far, but none on the eastern half of the US.
Microsoft just released the “Bing” application for iPhone and it is a solid effort. It was voice search that is similar to the Google app, and Maps implementation that is similar to Google Maps on the phone.
It’s a free app, so it’s certainly worth downloading and trying out. Chris Pendleton has a nice writeup of it on the Bing Community blog, where he highlights some the new features on it. Most of the features are similar to the pre-installed Google Maps, but the voice search in Bing Maps is a slick feature that Google Maps doesn’t have. The rest of the features are almost identical to the Google Maps app.
So which should you use? It depends what you do with it. In my case, I typically use it for real-time traffic. I’ll occasionally do a search on it, but usually just want to see which which interstate I should avoid. Below is a side-by-side look at the two apps showing real-time traffic around Atlanta. Google Maps is on the left, Bing on the right:
It’s not even close! Bing has all kinds of shading and blurring, which looks very nice, but makes it a pain to see what the colors are. Is that a yellow, or the road color? Is that orange in there? It’s quite a mess.
Google’s may look more childish, but it’s far easier to see. If I want a quick look at the traffic, I’ve got it.
The Bing app is pretty great, and overall I’m very impressed with it. However, I’ll keep using Google Maps (for now), simply because it does a better job for what I need.
Google has just released a new mobile phone app called “Latitude” that helps you track down friends and family in real-time.
The app is currently available for Blackberry, S60 (Nokia N95, etc) and Windows Mobile. An Android app will be available in the next few days and it’ll be coming to the iPhone “very soon”.
The system feels a bit similar to Yahoo’s new Fire Eagle, but with one big difference: Fire Eagle is a way to push your location publicly, while this service is for friends only.
Here is a brief video that shows how the service works:
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the new firmware update today for the iPhone (version 2.2) includes Google StreetView. I’m still loading the update on my phone, but I’m expecting good things. As with Google Earth for the iPhone, I would think that the multi-touch input will work very well with StreetView. We’ll see.
In the meantime, here’s a quick screenshot from CrunchGear.
Update: How to access StreetView
While the implementation of StreetView on the iPhone is great (pinch, drag, etc), accessing it is a bit tricky. To get into Streetview:
Somewhat out of the blue, though not totally unexpected after we saw EarthScape, Google Earth has been released for the iPhone!
It’s still being rolled out (Australia and Japan can get it now), and it’s not available for my area yet. I’ll post more details once I get it.
A little more info can be found on the Google Earth Blog, or you can check out the screenshots below.
A couple of good pieces of news for StreetView fans. Somewhat unsurprisingly, StreetView is apparently making it’s way onto the next firmware release (v2.2) for the iPhone. Considering it’s already on Google Maps Mobile and on Android, this wasn’t a shocker. Still, it’s nice to know it’s coming soon.
Also, CNET is reporting that Google StreetView cars have been spotted in Singapore, and Google has confirmed that StreetView: Singapore will be here “in the coming months”.
Continuing to expand StreetView, both in terms of coverage areas and supported devices, will only serve to make it that much more useful for all of us.
A couple of fun toys for today. I’ve created a mobile version of Google Earth Hacks, allowing you to view about 80% of the files (18,000 or so) on the go. It works best on the iPhone, taking advantage of the built-in Google Maps, but should work on any recent phone. Get details here, or simply visit m.gearthhacks.com on your phone.
Also, my wife and I are pretty big fans of The Amazing Race, so I’ve been working on a rather comprehensive mash-up for the show. You can read about it here, view the full map here, or just play with the embedded version below.
If you’re a fan of the show, it’s a neat way to see all of the amazing places that the contestants get to travel to.
StreetView has come to Google Maps Mobile! This should prove to be a very useful addition, since many people use GMM when trying to find a location. Having a street-level view of their destination will be great!
In addition to StreetView, the mobile versions now have walking directions and business reviews as well.
The software is available for: Blackberry and “many Java-enabled phones”. The software has not yet been updated for Symbian devices (like the Nokia N95), Windows Mobile devices or the Apple iPhone.
To download it for your phone, simply visit google.com/gmm.
Here is a short video showing off the new features:
