Jan Zdarsa Google has finally reappeared with an app for the iPhone, and right from the start I have to say that it's worth it. Google released the Google Earth iPhone app today! The application is not at all complicated, after starting it you will see the globe and you will have an icon in each corner of the screen. One is for searching, the second is the compass, the third is the focus of your position and the fourth is for setting.
Search works perfectly, remembers the last searched terms, if you make a typo, it will ask you if you accidentally searched for another term and offer the option, it can search for the place you are looking for closest to you or if there are more results, it will offer you all of them. The compass points north and when pressed it will "center" the map so that north is on top.
The map is controlled by touch by scrolling with one finger, the typical two-finger zoom works here, and two fingers can also tilt the map. The map can also be tilted by simply turning the iPhone. But there is more to the settings. Here you can turn on the display of photo icons related to the given location located in Panorama or you can turn on the Wikipedia icon here, which will tell you the facts about this place.
Google Earth can display the surface in 3D. Here, the quality of the map display is distorted in some places, but at the Grand Canyon, for example, it is beautiful. I have to say, the iPhone really sweats with this app. Personally, I'd recommend turning off the iPhone's auto-tilt and maybe the 3D surface if you don't need it right now. Viewing maps is thus more convenient.
Since the application is free, we can only recommend downloading it. At this point, I would like to mention the fact that in iPhone firmware version 2.2 will discover Street View or, in some parts of the world, a very controversial thing, where opponents are bothered by excessive intrusion into privacy.
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I'm just pointing out that this app doesn't have better map data than its alternative on the PC or Google Maps, and that's because it draws them from the same source as the two mentioned applications. The author of the article apparently did not notice that Google had already increased the accuracy of the maps some time ago.
@guzmen: You're right, they have the same quality as Google Maps. When I tested Google Maps last week, my city was still in a much worse resolution, although they already had new maps in Google Earth. I did not claim that they have better quality than Google Earth on the desktop, not again. In short, the web maps.google.com were in very bad quality in some areas last week.. now it's the same.. fixed..