Google Earth for Android

Tour the globe from your phone with Google Earth. Search for landmarks, explore a region, read stories about regional cultures, and send travel postcards to friends.

Pros

Search: To explore a specific area, tap the Search icon and enter a city or state, for example, a general location, or a landmark. To discover someplace random, tap the I'm Feeling Lucky icon to land on an arbitrary location.

Explore a location: When you search for a location or tap a place, a knowledge card will offer details on the location or landmark. Tap the card to learn more and see images. You can also tap the Fly icon on a card to soar around a location. To control how much information you see, tap the menu in the top-left corner, tap Map Style, then select how much or how little information the app displays.

Learn about our world: Tap the Voyager icon at the top of the app to explore a topic, such as a location or subject. Voyager is a constantly updated collection of stories about travel, culture, nature, and history.

Send a postcard: Tap the Camera icon to send friends a postcard from an interesting location you've found. You can also save the image to your Photos library.

Designed for touch: Move around a map by tapping or dragging with one finger. With two fingers, rotate, tilt, or zoom into a view. You can swap between 2D and 3D views by tapping the 2D/3D button on the lower-left side of the screen, reorient the map to the north by tapping the compass icon, and switch to a street view by tapping the pegman button.

Cons

Can't save locations in the Android app: The Google Earth app can't save a place to your list of saved locations. You can save locations in the browser version and view your saved locations in the app. You can also import a KML file into the Android app.

Bottom Line

Google Earth is an extremely engaging app that not only lets you explore in detail the surface of our world but also learn about our planet's culture, history, and more.