New GPS Support with Google Maps for Mobile Devices

There are many people who like Google Maps for mobile devices but have been disappointed that there hasn’t been support for GPS. (Note: the iPhone will not have GPS support. I would have thought that they would include this).  Google recently announced that Google Maps for mobile will in fact finally have support for GPS on certain mobile devices.

One such device is the BlackBerry 8800 from Cingular (AT&T) Wireless (Yes, the home of the iPhone too). Now when people are using Google Maps for Mobile on the BlackBerry 8800, they’ll notice a “you are here” blue dot.  Like any typical GPS device, the map is centered around where you are.

This will make searching for locations rather simple.  The example that the Google Blog gave is that now when you’re searching for pizza in the area, just search for pizza. You’ll no longer have to include the zip code (e.g, Pizza 60032) because it already knows your location.

Other features:

• Get driving directions (no need to enter the start location), and real-time traffic info.
• Find the nearest gas station, Olive Garden, Target, etc.

Perhaps people will start using their mobile phone devices as their dashboard GPS device, much like the iPhone will be dually used as a phone and a media player?

I haven’t gotten on the BlackBerry bandwagon for now (have you?), but the 8800 seems to be getting rave reviews from BlackBerry fans, partially because of the new GPS support. And now that Google has turned to GPS, I’m wondering how else they’ll decide to incorporate it into other services and applications in the future.

Everybody knew it was just a matter of time before the GPS integration made it to Google Maps for Mobile. It has, for BlackBerry 8800 users anyways, and hopefully for other phones among other networks (Sprint, Verizon, etc.) soon.