[This extract is taken from the October 2010 issue of PC Authority magazine.]
Android and iOS both come with Google Maps, but the features included in Android are far more advanced - no surprise given Google's close ties to that platform.
While Google Maps in iOS is limited to displaying directions on a 2D map, the latest version of Google Maps in Android includes a separate Places app for looking up nearby points of interest, a Latitude widget for seeing where your friends are, and a Layers option that displays Wikipedia, transit lines, and other information on top of the maps interface.
If you limit your GPS use to the built-in app only, Android wins this round. But if you're looking for a proper turn-by-turn navigation to use, iOS wins for sheer variety.
The major apps offering turn-by-turn navigation in Android are Sygic Mobile Maps, CoPilot Live and WhereiS Navigator - the latter is a subscription $15-a-month Telstra service that downloads maps on the fly like Google Maps.
iOS, on the other hand, has close to a dozen turn-by-turn navigation apps with Australia and NZ maps - in addition to having the ones that are available for Android, this includes TomTom and Navigon, as well as the new 3D Sygic Aura Drive, which is more full-featured than standalone GPS devices.
Android has many apps that take advantage of the GPS chip, but here too iOS trumps it.
To read the rest of this feature, see the October 2010 issue of PC Authority magazine.
