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Google added ocean views to its Google Earth for Android application, a move that should have greater import when tablet computers based on Android arrive en masse to tantalize folks looking to surf the Web with a larger palette.
Google Earth for Android 1.1 will let users check out the aquatic landscape and terrain in Monterery Bay Canyon, where users can leverage the “look around” button to tilt the view to see the undersea canyon.
Google Earth for Android 1.1 also sports an “Explore the Ocean” layer offering hundreds of photos and videos of the sea from more than 100 contributors.
Users may click the little blue icons or the gold icons, which carry content from the Mission Blue Hope Spot initiative.
Finally, for users of smartphones based on Android 2.2, which include the Google Nexus One, Motorola Droid, Droid 2, HTC Evo 4G and HTC Droid Incredible, Google Earth now supports Flash in balloons.
Those who have the Flash player installed on their mobile device can watch videos right in the balloon.
Google Earth for Android 1.1, available in the Android Market today for most Android devices running Version 2.1 or later, comes several months after Google launched Earth for Android for the Nexus One, the first Android 2.1-based smartphone.
While I imagine Android smartphone users who already used Google Earth on their desktop may use the app on their mobile devices, the experience of running a so graphically intensive app isn’t the same on the tiny screen.
Would you rather check out “ocean views” on a tiny screen where you have to pinch, zoom and squint, or on a larger display?
To that end, I expect this app to be a bigger hit for users of Android tablets in the future. In the meantime, Apple has acquired mapping technology providers such as PlaceBase and Poly9.
It will be interesting to see what it does with those technologies for the iPhone and iPad going forward.