google maps

2012 was another year that kept me glued to my iPhone and iPad, checking out the latest batch of iOS games and other apps. So which ones proved to be among my favorites? In alphabetical order...

Angry Birds Star Wars My wife and I love to play Angry Birds, and the Star Wars edition is a great take on the familiar franchise. This app could've easily taken a turn to the dark side. But Rovio knew just how to pair its birds and piggies with the classic Star Wars characters and settings that fans know and love. The challenging … Read more

Santa is on the way. As of this writing, according to Google's new Santa Tracker, Kris Kringle and his reindeer are in Canberra, Australia, dishing out gifts and toys to the girls and boys down under faster than you can say, "Paul Hogan's your uncle."

Those lucky Aussies always get everything before the rest of us, whether it's making it through the Mayan apocalypse unscathed or landing some sweet Christmas swag earlier.

But wait, the long-standing NORAD Santa tracker (now powered by Microsoft's Bing maps) is also monitoring the fat man and his flying venison, too. The official U.S. government-sanctioned Santa tracker currently has him over Japan as I write this.… Read more

Google Maps users looking to get more out of the app can grab some free advice from Google itself.

A new page dubbed "10 ways to make your Google Maps for iPhone experience even better" reveals several handy features that you may not know existed.

Tip 1: To place a pin on a map, press down and hold any location. The pin reveals the specific address and displays an info sheet with an option to share that location.

Tip 2: To access Street View, press and hold any location on the map and then tap on the info … Read more

The surge in adoption of Apple's iOS 6 may be due more to new users in China than users upgrading to the operating system while grabbing Google's new mapping app.

Adoption of the mobile operating system, which was released months ago, has increased by 30 percent since Google Maps was released to the Apple App Store on December 12, according to data from mobile ad exchange MoPub. iOS users unhappy with the in-house substitute Apple supplied after dumping Google earlier this year flocked to Google's new iOS app, downloading the software more than 10 million times in … Read more

A surge of people adopted Apple's iOS 6 since last week, but it has been months since the latest operating system was released.

This growth in iOS 6 upgrades may not be as random as it sounds. According to TechCrunch, which got data from mobile ad exchange MoPub, iOS adoption has bumped 30 percent since Google Maps released its app for iOS. MoPub surveys more than 1 billion ad impressions a day across more than 12,000 different apps and got its data from seeing users upgrade to iOS 6.

"We observed since the launch of Google Maps … Read more

Android 4.2 is full of new features, some are fairly minor, such as the Settings shortcut in the notification bar. Other features, such an improved photo editing process, are bound to have a bigger impact on the overall user experience.

Here are five new features you can find in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, with the sixth item being a workaround should you decide against lock-screen widgets.

Developer Options Developer Options is an important settings menu for developers and those who like to fiddle with their Android device. For whatever reason in Android 4.2, Google hid the Developer … Read more

Days after Google launched its Google Maps iOS app, rumors are circulating that Apple is making another play to beef up its own mobile mapping service.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech giant is said to have been talking to social network Foursquare about integrating user data into Apple's maps app. Apparently, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue has been meeting with Foursquare representatives over the past few weeks about how the service uses data to find locations and business listings.

Apple debuted its new mapping service and booted Google Maps from its mobile devices in September … Read more

It's no secret a lot of people have been downloading Google Maps for iOS since it came out last week, and today Google released the full numbers.

In its first two days on the App Store, the software was downloaded more than 10 million times, Jeff Huber, Google's senior vice president of Commerce & Local, wrote in a post on Google+ this morning.

"We're excited for the positive reception of Google Maps for iPhone around the world," Huber said. "Congratulations to the Maps Team on the recognition for the passion and hard work they … Read more

Much has been made of the general suckiness of Apple Maps, but, hey, we're stuck with it, right? If you ask Siri for directions, that's gonna be her go-to app.

Turns out, it doesn't have to be. As discovered by JailbreakNation, there's a simple way to trick Siri into using Google Maps for directions. Sort of.

All you do ask for directions like you normally would, but tack on "via transit." So, for example, to find the nearest Starbucks, you'd say, "Take me to the nearest Starbucks via transit."

What happens … Read more