Despite being on of its competitors, through its Android platform, Google has always been one of the supporters of Apple’s iPhone. The web search giant was amongst the first websites to offer iPhone versions of its services. In December 2007 Google unveiled a interface designed especially for iPhone that integrates Google Search, Gmail, Calendar and Reader.

In July Google unveiled a version of Google Talk designed specifically for the iPhone and which runs in the Safari browser. Also Google-owned YouTube has created special pages for iPhone.

Today, Google introduced a version of Google Earth created especially for iPhone. According to the Google Earth official blog, the new application unveiled today is more than an adapted version.

In Google Earth for iPhone, the users will be able to view the Panoramio layer and browse the millions of geo-located photos from around the world, to view geo-located Wikipedia articles and use the 'Location' feature to find out their current location.
Last month, in partnership with the GeoEye Corporation, Google launched its very own imaging satellite, using a Boeing Defense Systems Delta II booster rocket.

The new satellite has a resolution of half a meter, and while it may not be able to read license plates like 0.10 meter resolution military-grade satellites, it will render the best quality of satellite imaging available so far to the public through Google Earth.

Google has so far used a number of sources as mapping material, such as aerial photos and commercial satellites such as the IKONOS, which offers a 1-4 meter imaging resolution. Aside from the poorer quality, the mapping method used so far also meant that some of the images were literally years out of date.

However, Google’s strategy to create iPhone versions of its services has proved to be successful so far. A study released in March by the research company M:Metrics has shown that YouTube and Google Maps are among the iPhone’s most popular destinations (over 30 percent of the users for YouTube and 36 percent for Google Maps).