When it comes to maps, Google has had nearly everything: great satellite imagery, enormous coverage, and even some basic navigation features, but not what everyone that's ever used a GPS device really wants: turn-by-turn navigation.
This changes today, as Google now released a beta version of Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0. Here's a fast overview of the features:
- Search in plain English - speedily search and navigate to places, businesses, landmarks - Search by voice - View of live traffic data over the Internet. - Search along route - find locations close to your current path - Satellite view - you can view the similar satellite imagery you've seen Google Maps, on your phone - Street View - check out what the correct surroundings of a location look like - Car dock mode - when you place sure devices in a car dock, a special mode activates that enables easier operation
Google Maps Navigation does two extremely important things for Google: it makes it a contestant to established GPS firms like TomTom and Garmin, which should make this space a lot more interesting and it suddenly makes Android - the only platform this app is currently available on - a lot more desirable. And - you guessed it - the first Android 2.0 phone to support this application is the upcoming Motorola Droid.
Since the app is free, we can expect Google to add advertisements to it at some point. But presently, since you have to pay for every other mobile turn-by-turn navigation app out there (we're not talking pocket change here, either), the sheer fact that this thing is free will certainly make it a huge hit.
