Citizens of Earth — your planet is upgraded to version 2.0 today. Do not be afraid — Google comes in peace! Seriously, don’t panic, it’s just that Google Earth for iPhone that got an upgrade. No need to run and hide from crazy mobile tech aliens. Much to the chagrin of Android handset owners, this update only hits Apple’s handset for now. New to Google Earth 2.0 is the inclusion of your own custom maps. I’m on a quest to hit every WaWa convenience store, so I created a Google Map to keep track. Silly, yes but now I can view my progress on Google Earth.
Also getting the update treatment are the data layers like photos, Wikipedia articles and various other points of interest. In the prior version, I had to be very precise when tapping an icon or I had to waste time zooming in farther. Tapping a spot close to multiple data layer icons now opens up a menu of the various data points, making it easier to choose. Google also added support for another 18 languages, bringing the total to 31. Here’s a full rundown of the supported ones:
English (U.S), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.
I’m also finding performance to be a little more snappy in general, but that could just be hopeful observation. It seems to me that panning and zooming is improved, but I’m not a frequent world traveller in Google Earth — just a frequent traveller to WaWa.
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