Google announced via a Medium blog post yesterday that its Google Earth web app now finally works in browsers other than its own Chrome app, such as Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Edge and Opera Software's Opera, but acknowledged that support for Safari is still being worked on.
Any list of the best Google apps is subjective, of course. Nonetheless, we'll give it a try. Here are the seven of the best Google apps on the App Store. Why should you care? Google's one of the largest companies in the world and its apps and services are typically compatible across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.
Google today announced a major update for its popular Earth app for iPhone and iPad, bringing many new features that debuted on the desktop and web app in April of this year.
Importantly, it's received much needed support for 64-bit iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices to ensure that it will continue to run on iOS 11 which does not support 32-bit apps at all.
But first, check out the key highlights of this release:
Choose your own adventure with Voyager—Experience interactive stories from around the world. Discover new places with Knowledge Cards—Flip through cards and learn about local landmarks. Orbit the world in 3D—Use the new 3D button or tilt the map with two fingers. Snap and share a Postcard—Capture snapshots of locations and share them with your friends. Feeling Lucky?—Roll the dice and see where the world takes you.If you like the Flyover feature on Apple Maps, you'll love 3D imagery in Google Earth for iPhone and iPad. To switch to the three-dimensional view, tap a new 3D button and use two fingers to rotate and tilt your vantage point (hint: use this mode to explore Apple Park in all its glory).
You can also capture snapshots of the various locations you find in Earth and share them with your friends. To snap a virtual postcard, tap a new camera icon in the app's toolbar section.
And to help you plan your trip, Google Earth for iOS allows you to experience interactive stories from around the world. Called Voyager, this feature is available Under the Travel category.
There, you’ll find detailed multi-day itineraries for seventeen major cities around the world, including tours like “Paris with Kids”, “Beyond the Beaches of Rio de Janeiro” and many more.
Here are a few other Voyager tours worth checking out:
Natural Treasures from BBC Earth—Journey to six habitats, from islands to mountains to jungles, and learn about the unique and thrilling wildlife in each. Gombe National Park in Tanzania—Hear from Jane Goodall about her team’s chimpanzee research and conservation efforts. Mexico with Lola—Check out the little monsters featured in Sesame Street’s Girl Muppets Around the World, and learn about modern Mayan cultures.If you'd like to jump to someplace new, you should try Google's “I'm Feeling Lucky” feature by tapping a new dice icon in the toolbar. Lastly, Knowledge Cards, another new feature in Google Earth for iPhone and iPad, makes it easy to see related facts for a place.
Just pull up from the bottom of the screen to bring up a card with rich information about the thousands of places and landmarks around the world. As I mentioned before, the app now supports 64-bit hardware and comes with a brand new icon for your Home screen.
Grab Google Earth for iOS for free from App Store.
Google has updated its imagery on Earth and Maps services so you can now tour Apple's massive new headquarters in glorious 3D graphics. However, Google's data appears to be out of date as the Apple Park imagery shows the site in an earlier state, with the main ring-shaped building still being worked on and Steve Jobs Theater in its early stages of development.
According to the Google Maps team, they refresh 3D images of major landmarks and metropolitan areas at least once per year. As the screenshots attest, Google's data still shows the whole mountain of dirt which has since been reduced substantially as Apple is re-using the earth for landscaping, as evidenced by the latest drone flyovers.
To tour Apple Park in 3D on Google Maps, go to maps.google.com or fire up the Google Maps app on your iPhone or iPad, and search for “Apple Park Visitor Centre”. Now zoom all the way in, switch to Satellite view and click the “3D” icon in the lower-right corner of the interface.
You can now drag the view around, Control-click to rotate and more.
The best way to experience Apple Park headquarters in either 2D or 3D is definitely the recently overhauled Google Earth web app, but you'll need Chrome to use it.
Apple in March 2017 added 3D images of Apple Park to its own Maps service, including support for related details, descriptions and searchable geolocation tags.
Thanks, Carlos!
Google today unveiled a brand new Google Earth experience at earth.google.com/web. Being a web app that runs in the Chrome browser, it no longer requires a dedicated (and rarely updated) desktop app. The new experience includes interactive guided tours, Street View, Knowledge Cards, impressive 3D views with virtual postcards and more.
Google is upgrading the quality of aerial imagery for the satellite view that's available in Google Maps and Google Earth services. According to a blog post yesterday, both mapping services now offer crisp high-definition satellite imagery of Earth without clouds captured by Landsat 8, an Earth observation satellite launched on February 11, 2013 in a collaboration between NASA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Choosing a wallpaper can be tough, that's why every week we show you a featured wallpaper post in order to help you stay relevant and refreshed.
But if you want more, you might be interested in a new free jailbreak tweak called EarthView Walls, which will grab random wallpapers from Google's Earth view and set them as your device's wallpaper.
We'll walk you through how the tweak works in this review and talk a little about why it could be an optimal solution for you.
The Internet giant Google announced over the weekend that the Google Earth Pro desktop application is now available at no cost. A business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth, Google Earth Pro used to command an annual subscription fee of $399 so this is a significant development.
It has more features than the standard edition of Google Pro, including map-making tools and add-on software such as movie making, GIS data importer, advanced printing modules, radius and area measurements and more.
Google has posted a significant update for the iOS version of its Google Earth app today, bringing it to version 7.1.1. The update features a number of enhancements, including a revamped UI, improved directions and Street View.
The overhauled UI brings the application in line with Google's other iOS offerings, with a new left hand menu panel that makes navigating the app easier than ever, and improved search that lets you browse through results faster...
Google on June 6 held a hastily organized presser to announce "the next dimension in Maps", in an effort to beat Apple's in-house mapping solution unveiling which came five days later at the company's annual developers conference in Sam Francisco.
While Apple Maps won't launch before fall, when the company is set to release iOS 6 alongside the next iPhone and possibly a smaller iPad, the Internet giant is set to beat Apple by updating its Google Earth app for the iPhone with a new 3D view later today.
UPDATE: the new version just went live on the App Store...
Our friend and former iDB writer Alex Heath points us to a short clip highlighting Google's embarrassment at yesterday's hastily organized press conference to announce "the next dimension in Maps". Instead, as pointed out by MG Siegler, the search Goliath revealed anxiety over Apple Maps.
Be that as it may, the fact remains that Google put up a pretty boring show, rushing out a new version of Google Maps and looking foolish in the process...
So, when the T-Mobile G1 was released a week ago and the new Android platform was introduced to the world, did you think that Google would stop supporting the iPhone? Well, it seems the answer is a resounding, "No!" Google keeps its relationship strong with Apple and its iPhone users with a new app this week.
In addition to Google Maps, which already comes with the iPhone, you can download Google Earth [iTunes link] from the App Store for free. When I first opened up the app, I immediately drew a comparison with the Earthscape [iTunes link] app which is also free. Both apps use a 3-D rendered landscape. Google Earth for the iPhone includes Wikipedia entries and photos from Panoramio. You can set it to see your longitude and latitude as well as the altitude at which you are virtually viewing the globe.
Unlike the desktop version of Google Earth, the iPhone app has no street overlay. Boo. So, basically it is a big 3-D globe with Wikipedia entries and Panoramio photos. Boo. I'm disappointed to say the least. Especially so since Earthscape has gotten quite good over many updates and has built up a photo community. Right now, you cannot take pictures within the Google Earth application.
Google Earth also has some bugs. Near my house, there is a weird 3-D wall along my street which doesn't exist in real life (see picture, right). Looks like a bad render to me. Unfortunately, it doesn't go away. Boo.
Google Earth does have some interesting features that even Earthscape doesn't have. To see Google Earth in 3-D, you tilt your iPhone. It has a Google Street View effect, although you can only tilt up and down. Also, clicking the compass in the upper right corner makes the top of your screen north.
Hopefully, most of my complaints will be addressed in future updates. In the meantime, go ahead and download BOTH Google Earth and Earthscape and let us know which app you like better.