Best Google Maps for iPhone in 2021
Google flexes its map muscles with a great app for iPhone.
If Apple fell little with the original release of its Maps and GPS navigation app for the iPhone, Google could have left Apple users behind with some other choices for navigation. Yet instead of building buzz against Apple, it stepped up with an all-new, standalone iOS version of Google Maps. Google gave it free of charge to help regain their maps dominance in the Apple iOS6 environment.
Google Beat Expectations With Its iOS Maps App.
Google surpassed expectations with its Maps app for iPhone by producing the app instantly and doing right by iPhone users and Apple. It made a refined product that works well and is competitive within the set of smartphone navigation apps. It excels in several key areas:
- Search: Google Maps’ fiction list includes an address and business/points-of-interest search using Google’s powerful Local Search use, ratings, and reviews. This syncs searches and loves when you log in with Google.
- Directions: The app gives voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions, including travel by train, bus, subway, or foot. It also allows traffic detection and avoidance.
- Street view and imagery: The Maps app allows street-level imagery and touch-controlled panoramas of countries around the globe. It has high-resolution global satellite imagery and closes connectivity with Google’s earth-spanning imaging and mapping app, Google Earth.
Ultimate, you get Google’s years of hard-won experience and all the research and fine-tuning it’s done on a global basis to offer the most accurate map and points-of-interest data possible.
Speed and Integrity
Google Maps uses vector-based graphics to support maps render and scale more swiftly than bitmapped graphics. Google manages a few of the most powerful and most active data centers globally, which shows up in the Maps app with super-fast data retrieval. The app is also closed at calculating and re-calculating directions.
The opening interface is a simple map rendering with a few icons that control the app’s important feature set, including search, turn-by-turn directions, and quick access to traffic data, public transit directions, satellite imagery, and Google Earth. There are quite some navigation apps out there with cluttered interfaces. Therefore this is no little accomplishment.
Spoken Street-Name, Turn-by-Turn Directions
Spoken-street-name, turn-by-turn directions are at the center of any iPhone GPS navigation app, and Google Maps does not fail. The app calculates directions instantly, giving optimal routes and street names in a clear, pleasant, and very human-sounding voice. You can see directions in the traditional map look with a blue arrow and route line or a text list of directions enhanced by arrows.
Integration
This Google Maps app for iPhone was upgraded in 2013 to add integration with Apple’s Contacts app.
You can activate Siri and the voice search feature by touching the microphone icon in the search box.
Google Maps plays fine with other apps, fading into the background when appropriate and giving spoken turn-by-turn directions.
If you’re not close with Google Earth, this app lets you search detailed satellite imagery of the globe and 3D perspectives with the swipe of a finger. A menu option allows you to select Google Earth, a free app, to get different prospects on your destinations.
Overall, the Google Maps app for iPhone is fast, strong, and reliable. Heavy navigation users will appreciate its speed and efficiency.
