Google's neato 3D city view arrives on iOS today

A 3D view of San Francisco in the newly-updated Google Earth app for iOS.

(Credit: Google)

Months ahead of when Apple plans to bring its own photorealistic 3D maps to iOS, Google has beaten the company to the punch.

Google today is updating its Google Earth app on Apple's platform to include the same 3D imagery it showed off in early June. That same feature rolled out to users on Google's Android in late June.

iOS users are getting those same 14 regions, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and others. As Google adds more 3D cities to its database, both those platforms will get them at same time.

So just how soon will Google get some more 3D cities in its repertoire? It's in the works says Peter Birch, a product manager on Google's geo team.

"By the end of this year, we're targeting getting coverage for 300 million... [Read more]