Google Street View is back on the iPhone, but it's not pretty
Last night, Google made good on its promise to make Street View available on iOS devices, but it's not pretty.
Google may or may not be working on its own iOS maps app, as Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple device users shouldn't expect a Google Maps app anytime soon. In the meantime, Google's engineers did the next best thing -- they added Street View to the Web version of Google Maps.
To view Street View, just go to maps.google.com in mobile Safari or Google Chrome for iOS. You can't just tap on any location to view Street View. Instead, you may have to tap on a business or transit stop, or start at a known point and then "move" in Street View to the location you wish to view.
Unfortunately, there are some real issues with the temporary workaround. A number of users worldwide have reported gaps in the data where there was full coverage before, and Apple 2.0's Philip Elmer-DeWitt complained of frequent crashes.
It's not the perfect solution we all wanted, but at least Street View is back.
