Apple has been releasing betas of the next major iPhone firmware version, v 2.2. Some long promised and long awaited features, like push notification, remain missing in action, but it looks like we can look forward to a major update to the Map application.
The flashiest feature is the addition of support for Google Street View. Right now Google has street view for 58 US cities and national parks, as well as a few dozen out side the US. It’s a cool feature, but I’m not sure how useful it will be. It may be a while before I can find out first hand, since Seattle isn’t one of the supported cities.
There are other features I’m more eager to see, like directions and times for public transit, again drawing on Google. I ride the bus in Seattle, and its nice to use Safari to to check arrival times at stops near my home and office from my iPhone now, but it will be even nicer to have a better integrated experience, and to be able to more easily discover info about unfamiliar routes and stops. To round things out they include walking directions now, and there is a button for easily sharing your location via email.
Screenshots from user Gordon on iPhoneYap.
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[...] released a big update for the iPhone, the v2.2 firmware brings a lot of new features, including Google Street View to the Map app. The map app gets other improvements, including transit information, reverse geocoding, email [...]