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Back in January when the Nexus One was unveiled, we got our first glimpse at Google Earth for Android. When the Nexus One officially shipped, I was surprised to learn that the application wasn’t loaded on the phone. In fact, there wasn’t even a mention of it after the unveiling. I assumed it would arrive at some point on either Android 1.6 or later.
Now it’s more than a month later and Google finally snuck Google Earth into the Android Marketplace yesterday.
On paper, the Google Earth app sounds fantastic. Not only does it feature the highest resolution (800×480 pixels) seen on a mobile handset to date, it also adds new features like voice search and road layers. I wish I could share firsthand how great the experience is but, sadly, only Nexus One owners can download and take advantage of the new application. Apparently, unless you own a super phone, you’re not able to handle Google Earth.
As a T-Mobile G1 owner, I don’t ever expect to see this app on my phone. Even if I pretend that my phone gets an update to Android 2.1, I would have to remove a big chunk of applications to make room. Google Earth is 5.7MB to download, which is considerably larger than anything I have on my phone so far. Once extracted and fully installed, it eats up 22MB of precious memory. That’s simply not feasible for me as I would rarely use the app.
As to the timing of this release, I’m somewhat confused. It’s not like Google Earth was necessarily time-sensitive. At some point, most of today’s Android phones will be upgraded to Android 2.1 and capable of handling the app. Google could have waited just a bit longer to push this out and received a much warmer response. If anything, yesterday’s release only highlights the fragmentation problems surrounding the platform.
