With all the Nexus One hubub, Google made a couple surprising announcements today that almost slipped through the cracks. One of the surprises was Google’s announcement that both Verizon and Vodafone would soon offer the Nexus One on their respective networks. The second surprise was Google’s preview of the Google Earth app for Android. As we mentioned in our Nexus One announcement live blog, Google will soon bring Google Earth to the Android Market, complete with fly-by animations and bird’s eye views of your favorite locations on planet Earth!
The iPhone has been blessed with Google Earth for a while now, but Google Earth for Android isn’t yet available. To whet our geeky appetites, Google gave the media a preview of the app at their Nexus One press conference. Going on that demo, we can say that fly-by animations were smooth, thanks to the Nexus One’s 1Ghz processor. Bird’s eye view allows the user to explore a location by panning and tilting around any location. Most impressive, though, was the Google Earth app’s ability to search out locations with voice search – a feature that’s tightly integrated into almost every aspect of the Android 2.1 OS.
For now, we don’t have any videos of Google Earth for Android in action (sadly), but we do have some shots of the app demonstrated on a Nexus One. We’ll keep an eye out for the Google Earth launch on the Android Market, and you can be sure we’ll let you know when it happens. For now check out what Google Earth looks like on the Nexus One!
