Will Google Map (Street View & Walking Direction) come with iPhone 2.2?

Yesterday, Google announced two new features for Google Maps on mobile phone: Street View & Walking Direction. Street view has been available on desktop for a while. To me, it’s really an amazing feature that it provides 360-degree street-level views and I can take a virtual walk around cities exploring city landmarks at home. (If you haven’t tried out Google Street View, take a look)

Another recent feature of Google Map that draw my attention is walking direction. In early release of Google Map, it already came with driving direction that it can tell you the route to take from one location to another. I do not own a car (I used to walk ). Driving direction feature does not mean much to me. In late Jul, Google added walking direction to its Map. That’s pretty cool! Google now serves both “car” and “foot”. At the time of walking direction is released, I wonder when it’ll be available on mobile (of course, iPhone). It’ll be great to search for location and walking direction on-the-go. It’s particularly useful when I travel to other cities. Checkout the below video from Google and see the new features in action:

So, now, these two features are available to Blackberry and many Java-enabled mobile phone. Oh, wait! No iPhone? Yes, presently it does not support iPhone. But Google claimed that it’s working hard to bring the features to other platforms. I expect they should be incorporated in the next firmware version (2.2?). Stay tuned and probably it’s one of the features that makes you switch to iPhone 3G (if you haven’t).

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• iPhone 2.2 Update – Screenshots for Street View and Walking Direction
• iPhone firmware 2.2 will bundle Google Street View
• Rumor: Digital Compass for the new iPhone?
• Google Earth is now on iPhone
• Google Maps Now Suggest Alternate Route… But Not Available on iPhone Yet

Tagged as: google map, iPhone, jailbreak-iphone