First Look: Google Earth for iPhone & iPod touch

I’ll admit it. I never really “got” Google Earth. Sure, it’s fun to spin the Earth around and look at your house, but what’s the practical purpose? Google Maps is a much better and simpler way to get directions. Much better satellite pictures can be found elsewhere. In my mind, Google Earth is more like a social network. It’s for fun. People can add their geotagged photos, build their favorite buildings in 3D, and have fun making the earth spin around at a speed that would throw all its inhabitants right off.

Google Earth for iPhone isn’t any more practical to me, but it’s sure a heck of a lot more at home on the iPhone. With touch screen, accelerometer, multi touch, and tons of caching space, the iPhone is the kind of platform Google Earth was meant for in the first place. Even so, I still don’t see what I would use this app for. It is slower than the computer version and a bit choppy. The satellite images don’t load very fast, a problem that also plagues the iPhone’s built in Maps application. Overall, Google Earth offers little over the Maps application besides a round earth, geotagged photos, and Wikipedia entries tagged to places on the map.

If it wasn’t as choppy and loaded faster, it’d be a great app to show off the iPhone’s capabilities, but that’s really where it stops. If I want directions, I’ll fire up the Maps application.

Product [Google Earth (link opens iTunes / App Store)]