Google Earth

Best App for Maps

Screenshots

1

Home Base: Tap the location button in the lower-left corner to fly to your current location, marked by the glowing blue orb. Pinch to zoom in or out, drag your finger to pan, and drag with two fingers to rotate. The compass at top right helps you keep your bearings through all this flying, tilting, and spinning. Content icons mark where others have left photos or Wikipedia entries, while food, lodging, and other icons denote businesses. Tap one to find out more.

2

Beam Me Over: The search button lets you teleport anywhere on the planet. Just type in a location, and you fly straight there—a visit to the Matterhorn perhaps. Google Earth captures the height of hills and mountains, so you can zoom down to their base and tilt up to look.

Free

Version reviewed: 2.4
Google

Your iPhone's Google-powered Maps app is trusty and reliable, but it's got nothin' on its big brother, Google Earth. Like its desktop counterpart, the iPhone version of Google Earth swoops and soars across the planet's surface in high-resolution 3D, landing at any point you choose. Sprinkled across this landscape are icons representing content like photos, Wikipedia articles, or search results, enabling you to learn, not just look.