Get A Birds-Eye View Of The World With Earthview
EarthView ($0.99) by GoProd is an app that helps you discover more about the Earth's monuments.
Earth is a big place, and there are plenty of monuments and landscapes that everyone should see at some point in their lifetimes. However, traveling is expensive nowadays, and not everyone can.
Fortunately, developers want to make sure that you can see these wonders of the world from the comfort of your own home, and even learn more about them. This is where EarthView comes in.
From the moment you download this application, you can tell that the developers put some effort into creating it. The icon is pretty great, and the interface is just beautiful and sleek. Moving around in the app is fast and fluid, and the way the buttons look when pressed down is pretty.
But enough gushing over how good looking this app is -- how does it work?
This app is divided into four main views: Search, Random, Closest Monuments, and Top 20.
Search allows you to search in real-time for whatever landmarks interest you at the time. As you type, results will start popping up, so you may not even need to finish typing the entire thing out! Or, if you're just typing and hoping to find something out of curiosity, that works too.
Tapping on a result will take you to a birds-eye view of the landscape (denoted by the light blue dot), along with the name of it displayed as you see results in Google Maps on your iPhone. If this is a Top 20 landmark, a star will appear under the name.
You will see a "W" button at the top right, which will take you to view a Wikipedia page about the landmark you are currently viewing. This is extremely convenient if you are yearning to find out more about the place.
The Random view will do just that -- give you a random monument or landmark from all over the globe. The results can be pretty good, and if you're just killing some time, why not learn more about the world around you?
The Closest Monuments will take your location and search for the nearest landmarks around you. You will see the name of these monuments and just how far away they are from you. Tap on any of them to view the result.
Top 20 will display the Top 20 monuments from around the world. They seem to be ranked, so the Eiffel tower is the first one, and it ends with the Austrian National Library.
I'm not sure how these are ranked though, because the Statue of Liberty isn't on this list, though the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge are. Wouldn't the Statue of Liberty be more recognizable? Then again, that's just me.
The interface is beautiful, information is useful, and provides a great view of the world we live in. However, the app does require a constant connection to the Internet to work, so be aware of that.
There are currently more than 1000 monuments in the app database. Hopefully the developer can add even more in the future.
EarthView provides a slick way to learn more about our monuments, so if you're wanting to learn more about them, then this app is surely worth the dollar.
You may also find out more about your own backyard that you were never aware of!
