Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Yay or Nay. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Service: Google Maps for Mobile version 2.3.2
Running On: BlackBerry Pearl from Sprint Nextel
Yay: Excellent, easy-to-use maps, voice-based searching, and – perhaps most interestingly – Street View.
Nay: What’s not to love about Google Maps for Mobile? We’re having a hard time coming up with any drawbacks.
We Say: Google Maps for Mobile yet again raises the bar for location-based services in general and cellphone mapping in particular.
Review: Google’s first stab several years ago at bringing its Maps service to mobile produced highly useable results. And over the years Google has refined its approach to Maps for Mobile by adding a critical location-aware function and other helpful features.
But the company’s latest Maps additions – voice-based service and Street View – push the application from the incredibly useful to the absolutely must-have stratosphere. Indeed, Google’s Maps for Mobile offering is now head and shoulders above any location-service application we’ve seen, including those branded by the carriers.
And the fact that Google Maps for Mobile is completely free only serves to enhance its usefulness.
The voice-based search on Maps for Mobile saves users from the hassle of typing out business names, including those names that have difficult or unknown spellings (think Mexican or Japanese restaurants). To access the feature, we simply pressed and held our BlackBerry’s “talk” button, like we would a walkie-talkie. On seeing the “say a business name or type of business” screen, we spoke our search term into the phone and were served up results based on our current location. We tried out a number of search terms – “Arby’s,” “pizza” and “comic books” – and the system returned suitable results each time.
We’ve enjoyed voice-based searching before; Live Search, relying on Microsoft’s acquisition of TellMe Networks, provides a similar service. However, Google’s implementation of voice-based search stands out thanks to its crisp, easy-to-see maps and “get directions” feature. (We find traveling along a big blue line on a map, as with Google Maps for Mobile, far easier than the written instructions provided by Microsoft’s Live Search.)
But it was the Street View feature on Google’s Maps for Mobile that we thought pushed the needle from useful to amazing. After debuting Street View in its desktop computer mapping service, Google has managed to bring the offering mobile, where it is far more useful. (Look below for a Street View demo, produced by Google.)
Street View does exactly what it sounds like it should: It provides a picture of what you would see if you were standing at a particular place along a street. The implications of this service are far-reaching – if you’re trying to find a particular location, it’s much easier to spot if you know exactly what it is you’re looking for.
The implementation of Street View on Maps for Mobile is relatively simple, although somewhat hidden. To access a Street View, you click on a location on a map, and are provided with “get directions to here,” “get directions from here,” and “Street View.” Selecting Street View opens a small window with a picture of the view from that particular street. Selecting “expand” opens the image into the phone’s full screen, and you can essentially “walk” along the street (by seeing the next picture taken along the street) by pressing the No. 5 key. By using the BlackBerry’s trackball, you can scroll around a particular point on the map and see a 360-degree Street View of that location.
Street View is both useful for directions and for impressing friends and family – simply ask what their street address is, and in minutes you can pull up an image of the outside of their residence. Truly impressive.
After using the latest version of Google Maps for Mobile, we’re hooked, and we eagerly await a response from Google’s location-services competitors.
Demo provided by Google.
