Google has rolled out an updated version of Google Maps for Android with three key new features. The first is support for voice and ringtone notifications in Transit Navigation. This allows you to receive an audible alert when it’s time to transfer or when you’ve reached your destination.

The company also says it’s adding support for Transit Navigation to tablets, allowing you to get bus, subway, and other public transit directions on Honeycomb tablets — although this doesn’t seem to be working on the Samsung Galaxy Tab I tried it with today.

Finally, Google is returning the “Bubble Buttons” option which had been removed in earlier builds. You can open up the “Labs” area in the settings menu and enable this option. Then when you tap on a place on the map you’ll see buttons that allow you to place a phone call or get navigation directions to that place right away, without opening the Google Places page first.

You can download the latest version of Google Maps for Android from the Android Market.

Google Maps for Android gets bubble buttons (again), tablet transit navigation is a post from: mobiputing

Online travel service Travelocity recently launched a mobile app for Android which lets you book flights and hotels, view flight information, or access your saved itineraries from a phone or tablet.

The app has an attractive and relatively easy to use interface, but it’s a bit quirky in places. For instance, in the Book Flights section, the app shows a drop-down box with auto-complete suggestions as you type. But when searching the Flight Schedules section, there’s no auto-completion.

Travelocity for Android is also clearly designed for use on a smartphone. While you can install the app on a tablet running Android 3.1 Honeycomb, the app only runs in portrait mode, and all the icons are bunched together into a small space at the top of the screen.

That said, if you already use Travelocity to book your travel plans, the mobile app provides an easy way to access your trip information on the go. There are also options to view daily deals for hotels, find gas stations, or find things to do in the places you’re visiting, with city guides, event listings, and restaurant and nightlife listings.

Travelocity for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Travelocity brings travel planning app to Android is a post from: mobiputing

Google just made it a little bit easier to get around in London without a car. The company has added public transportation directions for London to all of its Google Maps products.

That means if you’re using Google Maps for Android, iOS, or BlackBerry or Google Maps in a web browser you can get step by step directions for getting from one place to another by bus, tube, or foot.

Android users can also fire up the Google Maps app to use the recently launched transit navigation beta feature which will let you know when it’s time to exit the vehicle or catch a transfer.

All told, Google offers transit directions for 447 cities including a number of locations in the US, Canada, and Europe

Google Maps adds transit directions for London is a post from: mobiputing

Verizon has added a number of new features to its VZ Navigator application and changed the name to “Verizon Navigator VX.” Customers can try out the new app for free for 30 days.

The update includes the addition of real-time traffic “Smart Routes,” which are updated every 60 seconds with real-time traffic conditions. Instead of just letting you know when traffic is ahead, the app will now map a new route to avoid traffic. Verizon Navigator VX now also offers multitasking support for turn-by-turn voice directions, which means you can still hear directions even when other apps are running.

Other features include location sharing via Facebook (but no Foursquare support, unfortunately,) as well as 3D virtual city driving graphics and a local search functionality powered by Bing. You can ‘favorite’ specific locations that you like, and even find real-time weather, gas prices, movie times and other local information within the app.

The 30 day free trail is available exclusively for new VZ Navigator subscribers, and you can find out if your device is compatible with the service on its official website. Verizon Navigator VX is normally priced at $9.99 per device per month, with weekly and daily prices also available.

Verizon Navigator VX now reroutes to avoid traffic is a post from: mobiputing

Google released an updated version of Google Maps for Android today, and while the company made a big fuss about a new feature that tells you when you’ve reached your stop on a bus, there’s another feature tucked away in the app which is at least as cool.

You can now download maps to your device so you can look up locations, get directions, or even use navigation even when you have no internet connection.

Here’s how to enable the feature:

1. Open Google Maps.
2. Tap the menu button on your device.
3. Select “More.”
4. Choose the “Labs” option.
5. Scroll down until you see “Pre-cache map area” and tap the download icon.

Now you can download maps for a 10 mile area surrounding any point on the map. Just open a location page for any spot on the map, click the “More” button and scroll down until you see “Download map area.”

If you want to free up space on your device you can delete saved maps by tapping your phone’s menu button, choosing “Cache Settings,” and then going into the Downloaded map  areas to delete existing maps. You can also rename maps from this screen.

You can download the latest version of Google Maps from the Android Market.

via Android Central

Google Maps 5.7 lets you download maps for offline use is a post from: mobiputing

Google Maps for Android has long offered the ability to get walking, biking, driving, or public transit directions plotted on a map. But the company has been gradually adding location-based Navigation features as well. First you could get free turn-by-turn voice navigation instructions while you were driving. Then Google added the same option for walking navigation. Now you can also use Google Maps Navigation while you’re on the bus.

In a nutshell, you just turn on the GPS on your phone, find transit directions, hop on the bus, and Google Maps will let you know when you’ve reached your stop or when it’s time to transfer. If you have to walk between stops, it will guide you there as well. Navigation will also work in the background so you can open another app to read the news or play a game and your phone will alert you before it’s time to get off the bus.

Unfortunately since the app relies on GPS, I suspect it won’t work on subways.

The company says the update also includes a beta feature designed to improve battery life when using navigation.

Google Maps 5.7 for Android also has new search features with category icons in the suggest window. Places you’ve previously received directions to will also show up in search suggestions now.

Google Maps is available as a free download from the Android Market and supports Android 2.1 and up.

Google brings stop-by-stop transit directions to Android is a post from: mobiputing

The app supports both text entry and speech input, and it’s fairly good at recognizing spoken words. I say “fairly” because when I asked iSpeech to sort out “Would you help me sell my child to the gypsies,” it jotted down “digit sees” at the end of the sentence. The translations aren’t always bang-on either, but they’re certainly good enough to get you out of a jam when you’re trying to communicate with locals whose language you don’t speak. iSpeech shows you a printed translation and will read it aloud as well, and both the Spanish and French examples I threw at sounded pretty darn accurate.

Translations do take a bit of time to process (shorter phrases are faster, obviously), and you’ll need an active data connection since the app is cloud-powered. Despite its shortcomings, iSpeech can be quite useful — and it’s certainly a massive step up from talking more loudly in your native tongue when people don’t understand.

iSpeech runs on pretty well every BlackBerry in existence, requiring only OS 1.0 or better and it’s carrier-agnostic to boot.

via Crackberry

iSpeech Translator is a BlackBerry-toting tourist’s friend is a post from: mobiputing

Google has begun offering live transit information in Google Maps. That means you can fire up the Google Maps web site in your desktop web browser to see where the bus you’re waiting for is actually at. But the service is also available in Google Maps for Mobile. It works in the Google Maps Android app as well as the mobile web site for the service as long as you have a supported mobile web browser.

Right now live transit updates are only available in 6 cities: Boston, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid, and Turin. That’s because Google has to partner with transit agencies to actually get this data. Hopefully the service will expand to include additional cities soon.

I live in Philadelphia where the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority recently rolled out a service called TransitView which shows the locations of SEPTA buses and trolleys equipped with GPS. The service is also available on smartphones, but it would be even more convenient if the data were included in Google Maps.

Google Maps gets live transit updates is a post from: mobiputing

Google has made it easier to check-in to places, rate or review places, and find transit directions using Google Maps for Android. Google Maps 5.5 hit the Android Market yesterday, and it features redesigned Place pages, and updated transit information.

When you open a Place page for a restaurant, museum, or other institution, you can now find buttons at the bottom to rate, review, or check in using Google Latitude. You can also now change your home or work address in Google Latitude using the mobile app, which should make your Latitude history more accurate.

Google has also updated transit station pages, making it easier to view scheduled bus or train departures at a glance, see color-coded descriptions of which transit routes stop at the station, and what other stations are nearby. Google offers transit information in 440 cities.

Google Maps 5.5 is available as a free download for Android 1.6 and up.

Google Maps 5.5 for Android improves transit, check-ins, place ratings is a post from: mobiputing

Google has rolled out an update to the mobile web version of Google Maps, offering many of the features that were previously only available in the company’s native iOS and Android apps.

You can now visit maps.google.com in your phone’s browser and view your current location, search for nearby businesses or attractions, get driving, transit, biking, or walking directions, and view traffic and other layers.

The app also shows Place pages with photos, business hours, user ratings, and other information. And if you’re signed into your Google account you can view starred locations or My Maps.

The new features are available in Android and iOS mobile web browsers.

The update is part of a growing trend toward mobile web sites offering more app-like features. Google recently rolled out a more powerful version of Google News for mobile which uses your location to find local news, and Twitter’s mobile web site now looks an awful lot like a native app.

Unfortunately the updated version of Google Maps is much more resource-intensive. When I tried out the app on my iPod touch the browser crashed repeatedly — something that rarely happens when viewing other web sites in the mobile browser.

Google Maps mobile web app now works more like a native app is a post from: mobiputing

Car-sharing service Zipcar has offered an iPhone app for ages which lets customers sign up to rent a car by the hour from their phone, manage their reservations, and even unlock the doors of your reserved car when you get close enough. Now the company has finally gotten around to launching an Android version. It’s still in beta, but it has most of the features you’d expect, including:

• Find cars by time, location, and type of automobile.
• View existing reservations.
• Lock or unlock your reserved car using your phone.

If you don’t have a reservation, you can still use the app to make noises by clicking the horn, lock, or unlock buttons. Sure, the noises don’t actually mean anything, but they make the app a little more fun to use if you don’t happen to have a car rental coming up.

The app doesn’t currently allow you to see past reservations, manage your bill, or do some of the other things you can do from the Zipcar web site.

Zipcar beta for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market and supports Android 2.1 and up.

Zipcar Beta for Android lets you reserve cars, unlock doors, toot horns is a post from: mobiputing

Google has been showing some love for its mobile Maps applications pretty often this year, and the company has just rolled put yet another update for its Android app. Version 5.4.0 captures your search history and places it into your Google web history.

This new ability to search your account’s history could certainly be useful to someone who, for example, typed an address on one device but wants to recall the address on a different device at a later date.  By centralizing your search history on your account, Google’s made staying organized a little easier and added a level of convenience to Maps.

Other features include additional business details, which include the star rating beneath a business’s name in the main map view. On a restaurant, for example, this adds the type of cuisine, parking, and meals served along with the opening date and neighborhood.

You can also now report a destination that Google Maps hasn’t already added to its vast database. On the rare occasions Google has ‘missed a spot’, you can easily report a location spot and Google will review and presumably add it. This has the potential to greatly improve on Maps’ accuracy and the user experience.

You can download the latest version of Google Maps for free in Android Market.

Google Maps for Android updated: Adds search feature to history is a post from: mobiputing

Google has pushed out an updated version of Google Maps for Android. Version 5.3 adds a new dashboard which shows your location history, so if you use Google Latitude to track your location or use the check-ins feature, you can see where you’ve been and how much time you’ve spent at each location.

That might not sound that exciting… but for stats junkies, it’s actually pretty cool. You can see how much time you spend at work, at home, or at other locations at a glance thanks to some pretty graphs and charts.

Google Maps 5.3 also lets you add “aspects” for different places. So for instance, if you’re rating a bar, you can rate the beer selection. If you’re rating a restaurant, you can rate the authenticity of the Mexican food.

In other Google Maps news, if you’ve been baffled by regional restrictions on Google Maps Navigation, there’s a hacked version of Google Maps 5.2.1 making the rounds that will let you get driving directions in multiple countries.

Google Maps for Android adds location history is a post from: mobiputing

Zipcar is a car sharing service that lets members take out cars by the hour. What makes Zipcar different from a normal car rental is the fact that you don’t have to go into a rental office to fill out paperwork and pick up keys every time you need a car. You get a member card which you can use to unlock a car that you reserve online. I use Zipcar in Philadelphia, and there are a number of spots near my house to pick up a car, so I don’t have to take a bus to a train station every time I need a car.

The company has offered an iPhone app for a while, which lets you manage your reservations on the go, and even unlock a car without your card. But Android users have had to rely on the mobile web site — which is useful, but it doesn’t have that nifty unlocking feature. Now Zipcar has confirmed that an Android version is in the works.

There’s no word on when the Android app will be available, or if it will function exactly like the iPhone app.

via Android Central

Zipcar Android app on the way is a post from: mobiputing

Google has rolled out an updated version of Google Maps for Android which doesn’t just show you live traffic information for free… it can automatically reroute your directions to avoid congested areas.

Earlier versions of Google Maps would generally attempt to pick the fastest route from point A to B… but it didn’t take traffic conditions into account. And as anyone who’s ever tried to drive in a major metropolitan area during rush hour can tell you, sometimes a straight line is not the fastest way between two points.

The app will also look at historical traffic data, which should help if current conditions aren’t available, or if there’s congestion right now but it’s likely to clear up shortly.

Google Maps 5.2.1 is available as a free download from the Android Market. The app supports Android 1.6 and up.

Google Maps for Android now offers live traffic rerouting is a post from: mobiputing

Google has pushed out a new version of Google Maps for Android. The latest version doesn’t make it any easier to find places you’re looking for, but Google Maps 5.2 does make it easier to tell the world about those places.

The first big change is improved support for check-ins using the Google Latitude service, which tracks your location. If you see friends near your location on a map, you can “ping” them to check-in at your location instead of sending a text message or making a phone call. It’s a quick way to either ask your friends if they’re free for coffee, or to annoy them endlessly. Your pick.

The app also makes it easier to find the place you want to check into. If it doesn’t show up in the drop-down list, you can click the “search more places” button to find the location. This can come in handy if you’re in an area that’s jam-packed with restaurants or other businesses available for check-ins.

Google Maps 5.2 also lets you share reviews of the places you visit on Twitter.

You can download the app for free from the Android Market.

Google Maps for Android adds Twitter, Latitude social features is a post from: mobiputing

There was a time before Google got into the mapping business when MapQuest was the go-to site for directions and maps on the web. And it turns out that even though most Google phones ship with a pretty slick Google Maps application and free turn-by-turn navigation, AOL noticed more than 1.4 million Android users coming to MapQuest mobile web site each month. So the company did the only logical thing and released a MapQuest app for Android. It’s now available as a free download from the Android Market.

The mobile app is choc full of features, including:

• Free turn-by-turn navigation with voice guidance
• Auto re-routing if you miss a turn (assuming you have a good internet connection)
• Live traffic updates
• International maps
• Voice search capabilities
• A toolbar which lets you search for hotels, airports, gas stations, coffee shops, grocery stores and more with a single click
• Satellite and map views
• Place pages with directions, web site links, user reviews, hours, and more information

The app is attractive and easy to use. But I’ve found that on my Nexus One it seems to load imagery rather slowly and searches can take a long time. I experienced a few crashes while testing the app this morning, and the app also uses around 8MB of disk space, which may be problematic if you’re running out of free space on your phone (like I am). All told, I’m not entirely convinced I want to replace Google Maps as my default mobile mapping application just yet, but for a first release, MapQuest for Android is off to a good start.

MapQuest has been offering a similar app for the iPhone for almost a year.

You can check out some more screenshots after the break.

MapQuest comes to Android, brings directions, local listings, traffic along for the ride is a post from: mobiputing

Sure, most Android phones ship with free access to Google Maps navigation. But Verizon is hoping it can entice you to pay $9.99 per month to use its VZ Navigator VX service instead.

So what does Verizon offer that you don’t get from Google’s free service? Here are just a few things:

• Virtual City Driving with 3D animations of major cityscapes
• Overhead traffic signs letting you know which lane to drive in or where to exit
• Plan trips online using a PC and send the details to your phone
• Premium traffic information which is updated every 60 seconds

The navigation service also features the usual goodies, including 2D and 3D views, satellite imagery, and search for local airports, gas stations, restaurants or other locations through Microsoft Bing integration. You can also use the app to get car, truck, bicycle, or walking directions.

Overall, the app looks great — but $10 per month is still a hard sell when there are free alternatives available. For now VZ Navigator VX is available for the Motorola Droid X, HTC Droid Incredible and Samsung Fascinate.

via Android Police

Verizon launches VZ Navigator VX mobile navigation for $10/month is a post from: mobiputing

Google has launched an updated version of Google Maps for Android, and as expected it includes a couple of pretty awesome updates. The first thing you’ll notice about Google Maps 5 for Mobile is that it now supports much smoother scrolling, thanks to vector-based graphics and caching. But that’s just the tip of th eicerberg.

Scan to download

There’s also support for 3D building views. Just touch the screen with two fingers and drag down to see a 3D version of the map you’re looking at.

Google has added a compass mode, which adjust the map view depending on the position you’re holding the phone. Just double-tap the My location button to turn it into a compass button.

On supported phones, you can also change your viewing angle by rotating with two fingers — but this feature doesn’t work on my Google Nexus One.

Because Google Maps can now cache some map data, the app can reroute directions when you’re using the free Navigation service as long as you’re in an area where you’ve traveled before. There’s also a setting allowing you to enable or disable caching while you’re on a mobile data connection. When you’re on a WiFi connection, caching is enabled by default.

Google Maps 5 for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Google Maps 5 now available from the Android Market is a post from: mobiputing

A new version of Google Maps for Android is due out in a few days, and it has a number of new features. Probably the most important is that it’s based on vector graphics rather than image tiles. What that means is that as you scroll through the map, you won’t have to wait for new imagery to load. Instead, it will load gradually as you move, providing a much smoother experience.

Other changes include:

• Support for two-finger gestures to tilt and rotate the map
• 3D building imagery
• Offline caching of locations you frequently use

Thanks to the offline caching capability, Google Maps 5 for Android should be reroute your turn-by-turn navigation directions in some circumstances even if you have no internet connection — but only for locations that have already been cached.

Not all phones will support all of the features. Users will need 3D graphics acceleration features and “distinct multitouch” support. For instance, the Google Nexus One reportedly won’t be able to handle the two-finger rotate capabilities because multitouch support on Google’s first branded phone aren’t good enough. Engadget has a rundown of the phones which should fully support Google Maps 5 at launch.

Google Maps for Mobile 5 to get 3D buildings, smoother scrolling, offline caching is a post from: mobiputing

Restaurant and business rating/locating service Yelp rolled out the ability for mobile users to “check in” to locations recently. Now there’s a good reason to actually do that: Yelp has added support for check-in offers. This lets businesses offer discounts, coupons, and other promotions to visitors who check in at their shops.

An updated version of the Yelp app for Android hit the Market yesterday bringing support for check-in offers. When you visit the Check-Ins tab of the app, you’ll now find a list of nearby locations that you can check into — as well as a bar at the bottom of the screen showing a promotion in your vicinity.

Update: Check-in offers are also now available on Yelp’s iOS app.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a good way to browse locations by promotion. So you’re stuck looking at that one promotional bar at the bottom of the screen. You can refresh the listing by exiting the Check-Ins section and coming back to see another promotion.

But if there are locations you regularly visit, you’ll be able to see any offers on their Yelp pages with the new Yelp app.

Yelp is hardly the first company to offer this features. Foursquare and Facebook already offer businesses the opportunity to provide offers to customers who check in using their mobile apps.

Yelp adds support for check-in offers is a post from: mobiputing

Google has launched an updated version of Google Maps for Android. The key new feature is a recommendation engine based on Google’s new Hotpot service.

Scan to download

Here’s how it works. As you use Google Maps to find places (such as restaurants, coffee shops, stores, hotels, and so on), you can now rate places using a new home screen widget. As you rate places, Google will get a sense of your preferences and start offering you personalized results.

Hotpot takes things a step further by letting you share your recommendations with your friends, and vice versa. As you add friends, their recommendations ill start to show up in your search results.

I’m not really all that impressed with the home screen widget, which shows you a list of all sorts of nearby places. If you’re in an area that’s densely packed with stores, restaurants, and other establishments, it can take a while to find the one you actually want to rate using the drop-down list, although you can always resort to searching.

While the new features are only available for Android users today, Google plans to roll out a Places app for iPhone soon which will allow users to rate places and get recommendations. iPhone users can also use the Google web app in their browser.

Google Maps 4.7 is available as a free download from the Android Market and supports Android 1.6 and up.

Google Maps 4.7 for Android adds personalized place recommendations is a post from: mobiputing

Travel site Orbitz has released mobile apps for iOS and Google Android, allowing you to search for flights, hotel rooms, or cars from your phone. There’s nothing new there. There are a number of other apps which offer similar services, but Orbitz says its app is the first which can actually let you book your travel plans directly from the app. Most other travel apps dump you out to your phone’s mobile web browser when it comes time to actually book your flight.

Orbitz lets you search 120 airlines, 12 car rental companies, and 85,000 hotels.

I took the iOS app for a spin on my iPod touch and it was a little finicky. The first few times I tried to search for a flight, the app told me it couldn’t perform that function because I didn’t have an internet connection, even though I was connected to my home network. Rebooting my iPod touch seemed to solve the problem, although I did notice that at one point after rebooting the app still reported the wrong travel date (I used the controls to select January 3rd, but the date field said December 3rd).

For now I’d recommend looking over your data twice, maybe three times before booking your trip. But overall the Orbitz mobile apps look like a pretty good option for frequent travelers — especially travelers who already have Orbitz accounts.

You can check out a few more photos after the break.

Orbitz for iOS is available as a free download from the App Store, while the Android version is available for free from the Android Market.

Orbitz launches iPhone, Android apps for finding and booking travel is a post from: mobiputing

Navigon’s MobileNavigator USA app for Google Android offers all the features you’d expect from a GPS navigation app. It plots your point on a map and displays turn by turn directions from point A to point B on a 2D or 3D map. It offers live traffic information, speaks directions out loud to you using your phone’s speakers, and shows points of interest along the way.

Scan to download

But MobileNavigator boasts one feature you won’t find in most other navigation apps: An augmented reality view. Navigon calls it “Reality Scanner,” and here’s how it works: You point your phone’s camera at something, and Navigon checks with the GPS and compass hardware, then dips into its data to find out what you’re probably looking at and displays it on the screen. Not sure how much further you have to go until you find the restaurant, gas station, hotel or parking lot you’re looking for? MobileNavigator can show you.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a gimmick, since Reality Scanner doesn’t really show you anything you couldn’t find using the 3D maps. But it’s still kind of cool.

For the next few weeks you can pick up MobileNavigator for about $39.99, but after that the price goes up to $59.99. The prices might fluctuate a bit, because the company is actually based in Europe and the prices are set in Euros and then translated to dollars by the Android Market.

via Android Guys

Navigon MobileNavigator app brings augmented reality to GPS navigation is a post from: mobiputing

Most newer Android phones come with free Google Maps Navigation, which means that you can turn on the GPS receiver, enter a destination and your phone will provide you with turn-by-turn walking or driving directions, complete with spoken directions and your location on an on-screen map. There’s just one catch — the maps aren’t actually stored on your phone, and are instead downloaded on the fly. That means if you happen to pass through an area with patchy wireless data coverage, and you make a wrong turn, your phone won’t be able to help you get back on track.

Scan to download

There are a number of third party solutions that allow you to download maps and store them on your device, much as you would do with a full features in-car GPS unit. Typically these apps are pretty pricey for Android applications, but the folks behind ALK Technologies have just released a new app for US residents which runs just $5, so I decided to download it and give it a try.

CoPilot Live USA is available from the Android Market. The $4.99 price tag covers the full app, which means you can download the latest map of the entire US and store them on your phone’s SD card. The full US map will take up nearly 1.7GB of disk space, but you can also download maps just for the areas you need, including city and state maps which take up much less space.

A bigger problem is that the app itself is stored on your phone’s main memory. Immediately after installing the app, it took up 14MB of disk space, and that jumped to more than 23MB after I downloaded voice data for spoken directions. If you have a phone with a large amount of internal storage this might not be a problem, but I doubt I’ll use CoPilot Live often enough to keep it installed on my Google Nexus One. I also ran into a few other problems with the app itself, which you can read about after the break.

The app does provide a decent array of services, including 2D and 3D map navigation, detour options if you’re looking for alternate routes or a way to avoid certain roads, points of interest such as rest stops, restaurants and gas stations, landscape and portrait modes, and day and night modes. You can also toggle units of measure between English and Metric.

CoPilot Live USA comes with 14 days of real-time traffic information but if you wan tot keep using the traffic service you’ll have to pay $9.99 per year after the trial expires.

The CoPilot Live USA app is by far the cheapest navigation app ALK offers for Android. CoPilot Live Europe, for instance runs about $80, while CoPilot Live North America costs $20. It’s also one of the cheapest on-board navigation apps (meaning the data is stored on your device and not in the cloud) available from any manufacturer.

That said, you sort of get what you pay for. Some users have noted that the map data seems somewhat out of date in areas. I’ve also noticed that it takes a long time for map data to download to your device.The app crashed on me a couple of times while I tested it — and when trying to play a demo of a route, it got stuck in a loop making the same turn a few blocks from my house over and over.

If you’re looking for a cheap alternative to Google Maps Navigation, it doesn’t get much cheaper than this. But if you’re looking for a reliable GPS app for Android, you might want to look elsewhere.

You can find a few more screenshots below.

via Android Community

CoPilot Live USA: $5 GPS app for Android is a post from: mobiputing

Google has launched two new Android apps for visually impaired users — although they could be useful to just about anybody looking for more information from their mobile navigation devices.

The first is called WalkyTalky, and like the latest version of Google Maps Navigation app for Android, it can provide you with walking directions from point A to point B. But instead of simply speaking up to tell you when to turn right or left, WalkyTalky will talk to you along the way, pointing out intersections, names of streets you pass, and even street addresses. This can help you keep track of where you are on your journey — especially if you can’t read the addresses or street signs yourself.

The other app is called Intersection Explorer, and it lets users explore locations without taking a step outside. Just fire up the app and the program will detect your current location (or allow you to enter a new address). You can tap the phone to hear the street name and nearest intersection, and you can move your finger north, south, east, or west to hear the names of nearby streets. This way you can discover how to get from one place to another by interacting with a map much the same way a person with perfect eyesight would do by looking at it.

Unfortunately I encountered a Force Close error every time I tried to run WalkyTalky, but Intersection Explorer seemed to work exactly as promised.

via TechCrunch

Google launches two Android navigation apps for the visually impaired is a post from: mobiputing

Google’s Car Home app for Android provides a user interface with nice big buttons for apps you’re most likely to need if you’ve mounted your phone in a vehicle. There are icons for navigation, phone, voice search, music, and contacts. But what if you’d rather use a different music player, or you never use Voice Search in the car and want to us that space for a different app? Now you can.

Google has launched a new version of the Car Home app which allows you to customize the apps that show up on the Car Home screen.

Scan to download

It’s available as a free download from the Android Market. It won’t show up as an update, because you have to download the app first — even if you’re using a version of Android that already has a Car Home feature. This is the latest in Google’s move to separate out some of the core Android apps from the operating system.

You can either open the Car Home app manually, or have it launch automatically when you attach your phone to a car dock or pair your phone with a Bluetooth device. The new app also lets you choose your own wallpaper and customize the color of shortcuts.

Car Home 2.2.1 is available for the Google Nexus One and Motorola Droid, and currently only supports Google Android 2.2.

Google releases new customizable Car Home app for Android is a post from: mobiputing

WorldMate is a nifty service that makes it easy to take your travel itinerary with you on the go. Here’s how it works. You sign up for a free account and install the free app on your mobile phone. Then just forward your travel confirmation email to trips@worldmate.com. As long as you sign up for WorldMate using the same email address as you receive your confirmation emails from, it should be able to parse your travel plans and make them all pretty like.

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WorldMate has been offering BlckBerry, iOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile apps for a while. Now there’s also a free Android app.

I took it for a spin and found that it works as advertised… mostly. While the app had no problem grabbing the details of my next two trips, it mistakenly labeled my upcoming trip to Toronto as a trip to Chicago — where I have a layover. Tomorrow I’m taking a train from Philadelphia to New York, and when I hit the directions button WorldMate gave me directions to Philadelphia International Airport — instead of directions to the 30th Street train station.

I can definitely see how WorldMate could come in handy for frequent travelers, especially since it has built-in weather and currency conversion tools. But you might want to look over the data it provides before putting your total faith in the app for your next trip.

WorldMate is available as a free download from the Android Market. You can check out a few more screengrabs after the break.

via Android Police

WorldMate launches travel itinerary app for Android is a post from: mobiputing

Google has pushed out an updated version of Google Maps for Android which now supports turn-by-turn walking navigation. It’s sort of like the GPS navigation you could previously use in a car — but for directions for getting from here to there on foot.

Google had previously offered walking directions, but not turn by turn navigation.

Walking Navigation is still in beta, so don’t be surprised if Google occasionally directs you to walk down a road that doesn’t have sidewalks.

The new version of Google Maps also has a persistent search bar at the top of the screen allowing you to filter your results or tap on icons to bring up the Places or Layers screens, or zoom to your current location.

You can grab the updated version of Google Apps for Android 1.6 and up from the Android Market.

Google Maps for Android gets turn-by-turn walking navigation is a post from: mobiputing

Google has rolled out a new version of Google Earth for Android, and it makes up for a major oversight in earlier versions — the fact that 3/4ths of the earth is covered in water. Google Earth 1.1 for Android now includes underwater imagery.

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Not only can you explore underwater areas, but there’s also an “Explore the Ocean” layer which includes phtoos and videos from over 100 contributors.

Google Earth 1.1 also supports Adobe Flash if you’re on a phone running Android 2.2 with Flash installed. That means you can watch videos in a pop-up balloon without jumping out of Google Earth and into a separate video player.

You can read more about the new features in Google Earth for Android 1.1 at the Google Mobile web site. The app is available as a free download  for Android 2.1 and up.

Now you can search for octopus gardens with Google Earth for Android is a post from: mobiputing

Waze is a free turn-by-turn GPS service for mobile devices. There are versions for iOS, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. And they’re all free. What sets Waze apart from other services, such as the free navigation tool that comes with Google Android, is the community aspect which provides real-time traffic, construction, and other information as you drive. You can also find Facebook friends on the road or check in to destinations using Foursquare.

Version 2.0 was released last week, and it adds support for Commuting Groups, ranking symbols for achievements, and new maps with 3D views and improved animations and movement.

If you bought into the Dash Navigation concept, as I did, you’re going to want to check out Waze 2.0.

While things didn’t quite work out the way we had hoped at Dash, Waze is carrying this torch. Heck, they’re more like Dash 3.0 at this point. Unfortunately, like Dash, the core navigation could still use a little work… as Waze was unable to find my weekend Calvert Cliffs destination by address and, in some cases, initial routing experiences haven’t matched the Telenav service I also use. But these guys are off to a great start and I dig what they’re doing.

You can find Waze in the Android market or download the free iOS app from iTunes. Windows Mobile and Symbian users can grab download links from the Waze web site.

A version of this article originally appeared at Zatz Not Funny

via Gizmodo

Waze offers community-driven GPS, real-time traffic, more is a post from: mobiputing

GPS units are cool and all, what with their spoken directions and 2D or 3D maps that show you where you’re going. But you know what’s even cooler? A GPS app that looks like something out of Star Wars. And that’s exactly what developer Christopher Caleb has come up with.

At first, the Adobe AIR-based app for Google Android looks like a typical GPS app. You enter the addresses for your start point and destination. And then things get all 1977-view-of-the-future on you.

The app shows a simple 3D graphic with yellow lines representing either side of a tunnel. On the side are two red lines. As you move closer to your target, the lines move toward the center until you’re right on top of it. At that point you get a bunch of red arrows excitedly letting you know you’ve arrived.

The app is based on the targeting computer from an X-wing Fighter from the original Star Wars movie. Sure, the app won’t actually give you directions. But it will let you know how far away from your destination you are. And while you’re driving you can hear “radio chatter” from other pilots, since the developer has also based the soundtrack for the app on Star Wars.

You can check out a demo video after the break.

via Engadget

X-wing GPS Targeting Computer from Christopher Caleb on Vimeo.

GPS app for Android skips the maps, replaces with X-wing style navigation is a post from: mobiputing

Poynt is a mobile application that lets you search for people, movies, and businesses including restaurants and gas stations. The app is location-aware, and makes it easy to search for listings close to your current location.

Poynt originally launched as a BlackBerry app, but it’s now available for Android as well, as a free download from the Android Market.

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You can either search for a business by name or type. Or you can use the browsing functions to do things like sift through nearby restaurants by cuisine. Once you find a listing you want more information about you can tap on it to bring up more options — allowing you to place a call, view directions, plot the business on a map, or visit its web site.

Unfortunately the restaurant listings don’t appear to have menus. But if you’re looking for movies you can browse by title or theater. You can browse for gas stations by location or best prices. And there’s even a reverse telephone lookup function that lets you find a business listing by entering the phone number.

The free app is supported by ads in the search results, and you’ll find a fairly large number of sponsored listings in the search results. But you can scroll past them pretty quickly.

You can find more screenshots after the break.

via Android Central

Poynt brings local search to Android is a post from: mobiputing

Google has pushed out an updated version of Google Maps for Android. As the company points out, this is the sixth update in the last six months. The biggest change in the new version is a new Places feature.

You can add a dedicated Places button to your home screen. Tapping on the icon will open the new Places tab in Google Maps, which lets you search for places near your current location. Or you can tap on icons for access to common searches such as Restaurants, Coffee, or Gas Stations. You can also add custom searches to this page.

The update also adds business hours to place pages, as well as other details such as menu links and parking information. You should also see compass information and distance information, letting you know how to get to those nearby places.

Google Maps 4.4 is available for Android 1.6 and up, and you can download the app for free from the Android Market.

Google Maps 4.4 for Android includes a major Places upgrade is a post from: mobiputing

Trying to find something to do this weekend? How about tonight? Goby can help. The app offers up information about all sorts of activities from dining to attending live music concerts to visiting museums or hiking trails. And thanks to the magic of geolocation, Goby will automatically find stuff near you — wherever you are.

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Goby covers every city, town, and region in the US, which means that you can find things to do near home or when you’re on the road. You can view results on a map, find phone numbers, and share activities through Twitter, Facebook, and email.

As with most apps of this sort, I’ve found that Goby is pretty good — but not perfect. For instance, when I searched for vegetarian restaurants, the closest it found to my home is 0.5 miles away — even though I live just a two minute walk from an excellent vegetarian sandwich shop. Your results may vary.

The app is available as a free download for the iPhone and iPod touch, and Goby recently launched a fee app for Google ANdroid as well. You can download it by scanning the barcode to the right.

Goby helps you find stuff to do in your neighborhood is a post from: mobiputing

Yelp has released a major update to its mobile restaurant search and review app for Google Android. Like the original Yelp app, Yelp 2.0 for Android lets you search for businesses based on your location, read reviews, bookmarks sites, and do pretty much everything you can do on the Yelp web site except for writing reviews (because Yelp doesn’t want short messages filled with typos). But Yelp 2.0 also adds a few new features that make the mobile app truly mobile.

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First up, there’s a new augmented reality feature called Monocle. When you click the Monocle button from the main menu, a screen will pop up showing you the view from your phone’s camera. Point your phone in any direction to start seeing restaurants, bars, or other businesses near you. The snippets show names, types of cuisine, distances, and average reviews. Click on any snippet to open the Yelp page for that business.

There’s also a new “Check-In” feature, which puts Yelp in competition with Foursquare, Gowalla, and other sites that let you compete with other users to see who uses the local Starbucks most often. I’m not really sold on the whole check-in experience at the moment, but as more and more businesses start offering coupons and other perks to customers who check in on a regular basis, I guess this feature could come in handy.

Yelp’s iPhone app already has both the Monocle and Check-Ins features, so the new update isn’t so much revolutionary as it is a step toward making Yelp’s iPhone and Android apps equal.

Yelp 2.0 for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Yelp 2.0 for Android adds augmented reality, check-ins is a post from: mobiputing

Google has pushed out an updated version of Google Maps for Android with a couple of minor, but useful improvements. First up, when you’re viewing a list of search results, Google Maps 4.3 will automatically expand as you scroll down the list.

Google Latitude will also now suggest friends for you to add, if you’re into that sort of thing. And when you click on a public transit stop, you’ll see upcoming departure info — which would be infinitely more useful if Google could make sure the next train will actually arrive on time. But some things are probably too much to ask from your phone.

Google Maps 4.3 is available as a free download/updated from the Android Market.

Google Maps 4.3 for Android, now with better search, transit info is a post from: mobiputing

Layar’s Reality Browser is an augmented reality app for Android and iPhone that lets you find real-world stuff by looking through you’re phone’s camera. Basically, you point your phone in a direction and choose the layer you want to use, and Reality Browser will show you icons for nearby restaurants, Twitter users, or just about anything else that can be plotted geographically.

Today Layar is rolling out version 3.5 of its Reality Browser. The new version doesn’t wait for you to open a layer or enter a search term. When you first launch Layar Reality Browser 3.5, the app will show you points of interest that are near you.

For instance, I installed the new version this morning and when I first launched it, Layar showed me a few local cafes and pubs, a Wikipedia entry for architect Louis Kahn, and tweets from Twitter users within a few hundred meters of my house.

The data is drawn from some of the most popular layers available to Reality Browser users. You can also still manually apply a layer find upcoming eents in your neighborhood, crime reports, apartments for rent, or other information.

Layar Reality Browser 3.5 is already available for download from the Android Market. The updated iPhone app should be available soon.

You can find more screenshots after the break.

Layar updates its Reality Browser, makes finding real-world stuff easier is a post from: mobiputing

On the one hand, I can’t really see holding my phone while riding a bicycle to see where I’m going — but the biking directions work with GPS, which means you can have your phone speak out loud to you and let you know when it’s time to turn left. Of course, you can also just use the app to plot a course in advance. Google Maps 4.2 also shows bike-only trails in dark green, roads with bike lanes in light green, and roads that don’t have dedicated bike lanes, but which are still good for bicycling in a green dotted line.

You can also use the Terrain layer to see whether the rid is going to be hilly or flat.

Google has also added a new Navigation shortcut which lets you fire up the Google Maps Navigation feature with one click instead of opening Google Maps and then selecting navigation.

The third major update in Google Maps 4.2 is the ability to share search results by clicking “Share this place” to send information to your contacts via text message, email, Twitter, Facebook, or other method — depending on what you’ve got installed on your phone. For example, since I have the WordPress app for Android on my phone, that shows up in the Share this place menu.

Google Maps 4.2 is available for download from the Android Market for Android 1.6 and up.

Google Maps for Android adds biking directions and more is a post from: mobiputing

Google Goggles is a nifty little app that attempts to help you identify products by pointing the camera of your Android phone at them and snapping a picture. At least that’s what it’s supposed to do. But let’s be honest, basically after snapping a few pictures of your cat to see if Goggles can detect her breed, you’ll probably figure out that there’s little you can do with Goggles that you couldn’t also with Google Shopper, an Android app that lets you scan barcodes to find the best prices for items online.

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But today Google rolled out a killer new feature for Goggles. Google has been working on allowing you to translate text in photos using Goggles for a few months, and today the feature is available to the public.

Here’s how it works: Just point your phone at a word or phrase, use the select tool to narrow the region, and snap a picture. If the app recognizes the text, it will give you an option to translate to your default language.

This could come in handy whether you’re trying to read a book that has a foreign word in it, trying to negotiate a menu at a French restaurant, or looking for a bus stop in a foreign country.

Unfortunately the Goggles translation feature is far from perfect. I often found I had to snap several pictures before the option to translate would come up. And if you’ve ever used Google Translate, you know that you’re going to have to put up with a fair bit of computer-translated gibberish. But that’s a small price to pay for not having to actually learn a new language just to get the gist of foreign language text.

Google Goggles 1.1 is available for phones running Google Android 1.6 and newer. It’s available as a free download from the Android Market, or you can scan the barcode to the right to get started.

You can check out a short video of Google Goggles’ new translate feature in action after the break.

Google Goggles lets you translate text with your cameraphone is a post from: mobiputing