Google Earth Gets Optimization To Improve Use On Tablets

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If you’ve used Google Earth lately, you know that this mildly controversial, somewhat intrusive program (when I actually saw my house on Google Earth, I got a little freaked out, but then I discovered it was an old picture anyway so recognizing the place now might be a lot tougher) works great on laptops and desktops, though on tablets, not so much. But they’re making some modifications to a new update that will give you a lot more usability on a tablet than you might have thought available.

Product manager Peter Birch spilled a few beans about the update, which is set to include not only textured buildings in 3D, but also a new version of their action bar that lets you navigate the maps more easily, and a series of spaces that act like pop-up windows for various bits of content to tell you about the things you’re looking at on the map. Anyone running a version of Android 2.1 or over will be able to get in on the new version of Google Earth, which means the variety of new Android tablets that we’ve been hearing about for months now will likely be able to get in on this.

I’ve got to admit, I like this. Google Earth actually saved me no less than two seventy mile round trips, allowing me to electronically travel via internet connection to a location at which I wanted to see something, only to discover that the thing in question was simply no longer there. And considering that gas is currently running around four bucks a gallon, well, that’s about 20 bucks I saved thanks to Google Earth. So any update to Google Earth is absolutely one that’s worth checking out. And if you’ve already got a tablet anyway, well, you should certainly be in on it.