Oh, I had my hopes up about this news story too. Vodafone has launched a new service called Mobile Earth, which lets you view any address on full-colour maps or high-resolution aerial photos, much like the Google Maps website. You can also calculate the best routes between addresses and see the results on a map, or search for more than 400,000 points of interest. Cool!
Except they’re all in Germany. Yes, sadly it’s Vodafone Germany who have launched the application, which has been made by a firm called LocatioNet. It’s a Java application that you download to the handset, although the actual maps are stored on a central server, so you don’t have to worry about running out of room for your photos, games etc.
Fingers crossed it – or something like it – comes to Vodafone UK and the other operators soon. In the meantime, have a look at this online demo to see how it works.
Uhm, nice, but it doesn’t seem to add anything more than the already available Google Maps Mobile service: