Google Earth App Now Available For The iPad

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As a long time iPhone and more recently iPad user, I have gradually formed a morning ritual of checking iTunes (the App Store) to see if any apps were updated during the night. At times its almost like getting a small present in the morning. And this morning in particular was one of those times. The app update that I am referring to is Google Earth.

Of course, this is good news for me as I always loved the Google Earth app. In fact, when Google first made it available in the App Store I loaded it up and it remained on my iPhone for almost the entire time I owned it. I then picked up an iPad when the 3G was released and unfortunately the app was not iPad-friendly.

Well, good news to me — that Google Earth app update finally arrived this morning in the form of version 3.0. The changes in this version are short, yet sweet, and include perks for the iPhone 3GS in addition to the iPad.

• Native support for iPad, including full resolution imagery and an iPad-specific look and feel
• Road layer added for iPad and iPhone 3GS

And while the “what’s new” section in the App Store is really just a bunch of text and could be overdramatic — let me tell you this — the Google Earth app is pretty spectacular on the iPad. Granted that is just my personal opinion, but given that I have already wasted a little over 30 minutes of supposed work time playing around, I think its safe to say that I was impressed.

That said, I am sure the iPhone 3GS users will also be appreciative of the road layer addition.

Otherwise, the Google Earth app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch comes in at 12.8MB and remains a free download.