Google confirms brand new Street View mobile app arriving early next month

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Two months ago, Google hinted it was readying a brand new mobile application called Street View. The app was designed to provide easy access to your photo spheres and those from Google and other contributors. Today, the Internet giant sent an email blast confirming that the native Street View for iOS app is coming in early-September.

The search company did not share detailed information about the upcoming software, but we’ve been able to glean a few tidbits. For starters, the Street View app will replace Google’s Photo Sphere Camera mobile app for iOS and Android. More important than that, Street View will be capable of linking to a dedicated spherical camera hardware.

“For the first time, in one new app, your profile and photo spheres will be presented alongside those from Google and other contributors, creating a unified Street View gallery designed to bring more visibility to you and your work,“ Google Maps team said in a Google+ post two months ago.

Today’s email confirms the following:

  • The upcoming Street View app will link to two spherical cameras at launch: the NCTech iris360 and the Giroptic 360cam. The former delivers 8K HDR images to the app while the latter focuses on accessibility with fast shots and a take–it–anywhere design.
  • Your public profile on Google Maps is about to take on a whole new look and feel because some key Views profile features will make their way into Google Maps.
  • The Views service is schedule to go offline mid-August, after which the aforesaid changes will begin rolling out in Google Maps.
  • Uploads directly from the Google Maps website will follow soon after.
  • Later this year, Google Maps will bring back support for creating connections between photo spheres with a new, more automated solution. Users’ existing photos, photo spheres and constellations will continue to be visible and deletable through the Google Maps website.
  • Your Views descriptions and comments won’t transfer over to your Google Maps account.
  • All images will continue to be accessible via Google+, including those that have not been approved for Google Maps.

In addition to these changes, the business-facing Google Maps | Business View platform will be rebranded as “Street View | Trusted,” with many of its stringent policies eased to allow easier enrollment, simpler publishing and more reliable editing.

Google recently started decoupling its failed Google+ social network from the rest of its services, including YouTube and Gmail. As for its mobile Maps application, the iOS edition of the app recently picked up interesting new features such as revamped public transport directions with alternate routes and real-time data about your arrival time and a “Your Timeline” feature for revisiting any place you’ve been on a given day, month or year, to mention just a few.