The iPhone is another step in the Web 2.0 realm. The Popularity of interactive maps offer a clear opportunity for Apple to incorporate Google Maps into their own platform. Using your iPhone, you can view street level maps, satellite imagery and directions to your destination points as well as access real time traffic information. The only thing where the iPhone currently falls short on maps integration is the lack of built in GPS capability, which is certainly not new to smart phone devices (VZ Locator is just one example of successful integration of GPS technology with smart phones).
The Google Maps platform by itself is a very wide-reaching and powerful application that allows you to find business locations and contact information easily using your iPhone, while dragging maps areas to adjacent sections of the map without the need to click and wait for the image to reload. Satellite imagery provides the capability to zoom-in on your area of interest. Street-level views are just one click away -- and you will still be located at the zoom-in point on the map.
iPhone takes this built-in Google Maps capability one step further with the ability to interact with data within the area that interests you simply by touching the screen. Real time access to traffic information via a wireless line will help you avoid road congestions. Moreover, the iPhone’s QWERTY style keyboard allows you to utilize Google Maps shortcuts such as:
- Pan left – Ctrl + Arrow Left
- Pan Right – Ctrl + Arrow Right
- Pan Up – Ctrl + Arrow Up
- Pan Down – Ctrl + Arrow Down
- Pan Wider – Page Up, Page Down, Home and End
- Zoom-In – Ctrl + (+) or Wheel forward
- Zoom-Out – Ctrl + (-) or Wheel downward
In addition, you can save your home location with iPhone Google Maps, and send web page content found via maps to another phone. All major wireless services provide support for this feature. Here is a list of some of them: Alltel, AT&T, CellularOne, Cingular, Nextel, Omnipoint, Qwest, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Virgin Mobile.