No, this is not a post about gpsAssassin (though that would have been a good and appropriate title).
I am talking about Google Maps.
Back in 2006 I first saw Google Maps on a phone with GPS. At the time I had a Sprint a900 and had to do a little hackery to get it to work. When I started traveling for work in 2006 I switched to a Palm Treo and then a Blackberry. Both of these had Google Maps, but the Palm didn’t have GPS. Again, with the backberry I had to unlock the phone in order to get Google Maps working, but once I did I found it to be one of the most freeing pieces of software ever.
I quickly started using Google Maps for much more than just seeing where I was. It quickly became my #1 tool for finding business phone numbers, locations and even websites. By using Google Maps in conjunction to my current location I was able to search for businesses and get location specific results. A great example is finding a nearby bank. I could have called the bank or gone to their website and used the branch locator, or I could just pull up Google Maps and type “suntrust”. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, due to license restrictions with how Google received their mapping information, they were not able to provide some of the most sought after features like audible turn-by-turn navigation and weather. Apparently that is starting to change.
Check out this video about the next version of Google Maps for mobile phones. It not only has turn-by-turn navigation, it also makes finding businesses along your route a simple task (as opposed to next to impossible with every navigation system I have used). What I am most excited about is the “layers” that they use to overlay the search information along your route. Mark my words, in 2010 Google will announce that weather data is available as a layer. Real-time weather in a draggable, searchable map. I can’t wait.
Update:
It looks like Garmin and TomTom are in a world of hurt (for the short term at least. Their stock prices are down 16-21% respectively. That is a pretty serious one day drop. The question is, is it an artificially low price because of the news. I am tempted to sell all my AAPL and buy GRMN.
