Google Earth 2.0 Allows Map Sharing

**Paul Daniel Ash** · 11-17-2009, 06:30 PM

Google announced yesterday the 2.0 upgrade to Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod touch, with a lot of added functionality, including perhaps most notably the ability to access maps that you saved from your desktop computer to the Google "My Maps" website. The new version also provides a more intuitive touch navigation, better performance, and is available in 31 languages (version 1 only did 18).

"My Maps" integration not only allows you to extend the functionality of your desktop Google Earth program, but also tune in to other users' shared maps. As Google' blog announcement described it:

"By logging in directly to your Google Maps account, you can view the same maps that you or others have created, using the My Maps interface. Maybe you're on a trip and want to see where Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of Lonely Planet, most likes to travel. Or perhaps you're walking around looking for a restaurant and you want to see where world-famous chef Ferran Adrià likes to eat. All you have to do is click "Save to My Maps", open Earth on the iPhone, log in with the same account information, and voilà, you have your same collection of My Maps right in your pocket."

Selection and manipulation of the map's data layers - featuring photos, Wikipedia articles and other metadata about the area being mapped - is also improved in the new version. In the earlier release, you had to either tap very precisely or zoom in close enough to hit your target: an often time-consuming process, especially on slow data connections. Now, when you tap an icon it glows, and if you tap a spot close to multiple icons it opens up a menu list of icons to make it easier to select the one you want.

Google Earth is free on the App Store, and is available in US and Commonwealth English, French, German, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, European and Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.

image via Google