The World In the Palm of Your Hand

There are a lot of great apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. One of them is the newly released Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It literally feels like the world is in the palm of your hands.

I downloaded the Google Earth app and installed in on my iPod Touch. Amazing. That’s what I can say. Imagine having all that data in your hands. You can see the world without moving from where you are. That’s just fantastic.

This app fits the iPhone interface pretty well. You pinch and use gestures to manipulate the map. There’s an auto tilt function that allows you to change your perspective. Although I did turn this feature off since it was irritating to use while lying down. That’s one of my gripes. I wish you could reset the neutral point of the app so that even you’re lying down you can still use the auto tilt function.

Naturally the Philippines doesn’t have maps that are as detailed as the U.S. but it was good enough. I recognized the street and the building where I live. I was able to browse through the general area and find my way around.

It was also fun looking at the various Wikipedia entries as well as view the geo-tagged photos by Panoramio.

This app is a must have. There’s some room for improvement but given that, it’s still something you should have on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Best of all, it’s free.

Visit the entry from the Google Blog
Download from the App Store