Street View, more nav options come to iPhone 2.2
It looks like Street View on the iPhone 2.2 firmware will sport an inset map to help with orientation.
(Credit: iPhoneYap.com)Updated at 9:33 a.m. PDT to correct navigation details. Updated at 1:29 p.m. PDT with screenshots.
Google Earth for iPhone isn't the only geographically significant news Monday for Apple phone users. It appears that the second beta version of the iPhone 2.2 firmware is out, and it includes not just Google's Street View, but also navigation instructions to give people step-by-step directions when walking or on the bus.
According to screenshots posted at iPhoneYap.com, the navigational instructions work for driving, walking, and the bus. Given Google's recent Google Maps improvements, I wouldn't be surprised to see it working for subways and other public transit, too.
It appears the iPhones mapping application will be able to give bus and walking instructions too.
(Credit: iPhoneYap.com)With the current iPhone 2.1 firmware, the phone gives only driving directions.
The Street View addition to the iPhone was expected, but the screenshots show a bit better how it likely will work. It includes not just the driver's view of the world, but also a small inset map that shows street names and the orientation of the view.
And as with the Maps application, there's an unobtrusive gray Google logo in the lower-right corner of the screen.
When I asked Google Earth Product Manager Peter Birch on Friday about when we'd see Street View for the iPhone, he was unsurprisingly enthusiastic but noncommittal.
"We had the opportunity to work with Apple from the beginning to get Google Maps integrated in the phone, which creates a great maps experience. We'd like to see the (other maps) features we've developed get to the iPhone as quickly as possible," Burch said. "I'd fully expect that over time, it will continue to bring in features."
Google can't release its iPhone software directly, as it can with the Android phone operating system or the Google Maps for Mobile application running on Java-enabled phones such as BlackBerrys. "Things are different on the iPhone," Birch added.
About 6.9 million iPhone 3G models sold in the third quarter, making it an increasingly important product for Apple and for anyone offering applications on the phone and its close relative, the iPod Touch.
Also in the second beta, according to MacRumors, the 2.2 release notes "indicated that line-in audio accessories are now supported in the SDK," or software development kit. So perhaps the iPhone and iPod Touch will become a better audio recorder.
No word yet on whether the new beta will make another round of improvements to what I find the single most annoying aspect of the iPhone: the persistent, if reduced, problem of dropped calls.
(Via InformationWeek.)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
>"I wouldn't be surprised to see it working for subways and other public transit, too."
The screenshots at iPhoneYap already show it working for subways.
>"With the iPhone, Google can't release the software directly"
Google has already released native software directly for the iPhone, and a native version of Google Earth for the iPhone is all over the news today (written about on Cnet by the same author yesterday), so this is poorly worded as it may be confusing.
It would be better to write "With the iPhone, Google can't release updates to the Maps software directly."
Now as long as the author is mentioning other features in the beta iPhone 2.2 software: It also comes with Emoji, for greater acceptance of the phone in Japan.
And I'm surprised that the dig at dropped calls (which has been solved for the majority of people by iPhone OS 2.1) didn't also add the usual moans about no MMS or copy and paste. I guess people are tired of hearing about those, though, so some other failing has to be emphasized. Or more likely it's a way to troll for comments from USERS about the continued lack of MMS and copy and paste.
Anyway, a bunch of leaked screenshots of a new maps feature are hardly likely to give information about changes in call quality, so that kind of complaint in such a story is off-topic and sloppy.
-lacfnc06
- by iPhone-dude October 29, 2008 9:21 PM PDT
- Voice Commands would be nice. Audible turn by turn directions even better. Why did they not do this on the first one? Money? T0M -T0M in your pocket....right on!
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