Google Street View Finally on Mobiles
Monday 15 Dec 2008
Google Maps is nothing new to us these days and plenty of people use the application in daily life to get directions and find stuff. Things have now taken a step further in the mobile industry. It’s now possible to get ‘Street View’ on some mobile phones that have Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems. Street View gives you a full 360 degree vision and displays locations as you would normally see them at eye level. At the moment you can get Street View on the iPhone,
T-Mobile G1 and most of the
BlackBerry handsets.
With Street View now being rolled out throughout Europe it makes sense that the smartphone systems in the United Kingdom jump on the band wagon.
I’m quite keen on the recently released Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 so I’m hoping that it will have Street View on it as it has a Windows Mobile operating system. I had a bit of a play with Street View on a T-Mobile G1 last week and was really impressed. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen this year. The G1 has a built-in compass which means you can spin round in the street you’re in and the G1 will pan round the view with you. We know that the Nokia N97 will have a built-in compass and is due out next year so if you’ve got the patience to wait it could well be worth holding fire for the next Symbian operated beast. Although, no promises as we haven’t had confirmation that it will have Street View installed.
I’m chuffed that handsets other than the iPhone are being considered with new technologies. I’m still smarting that the iPhone is the only device that you can get Google Earth on.