When I gave Marie an iTouch, one of the first things she wanted to run 
on it was Google Earth. But of course, that's a PC application, and the 
iTouch isn't a PC - it's not even a Mac.

So although lots of functionality from Google Maps seemed to be there, 
Google Earth wasn't.

Until recently, that is, when a version of Google Earth for the 
iTouch/iPhone was released. Today sees 1.0.1 released; I don't know what 
they fixed, but something, obviously.

The version is a bit cut-down from the PC version, and especially from 
5.0 which also came out today for PCs, and now lets you dive underwater 
and look around with its new 'Oceans' facility. It also lets you go back 
into the past, but I haven't figured that yet...

But Google Earth on the iTouch seems like a whole 'nother Google Earth; 
you control pretty much everything with finger gestures, so you can spin 
the Google globe with one finger, zoom in on a place, back forward, 
rotate, even tilt, with just your fingers. Or you can tilt by physically 
tilting the iTouch.

There's even an icon you can touch to take you (pretty close) to where 
you are; quite something for a device that doesn't (as far as we know) 
have a GPS chip or any way of triangulating off mobile phone masts 
(though the iPhone can, for increased accuracy).

The integration with the Contacts app is something else, as well. We are 
used, when tapping a contact address, to having that address appear on 
Google Maps, and to be able to get driving directions from where we are 
now.

But if you put a place name into Google Earth, it pops up those people 
that you know who live there, and will show you their houses. No driving 
directions, though...

It also has Panoramio pictures and Wikipedia text icons at points of 
interest, though it's a complete swine to get a Wiki entry open (I was 
nearly going to say that Wiki didn't work, until I persevered and one 
did).

Another thing I like is that if you go out of range of the house wifi, 
Google Earth will still keep working with whatever it has cached before 
you left; so I could zoom in on the plant I have been working at, take 
the iTouch to work and show it to people, even though the iTouch isn't 
allowed on the work wifi system.

Only when you try to show somebody their house, say, which you haven't 
pre-loaded, does it stay obdurately blurred at whatever level of detail 
you had when you were last in wifi range.

Google Earth is a free download from the Apple AppStore, whose icon is 
also there on the iTouch; go into it, give your password, choose the 
app, no 17 in the Top 25 free, touch Download, and a few seconds later 
it will show up as a new app on the screen.

Did I say I was impressed?
-- 
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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