14 DAY TRIAL // Good news for Verizon Wireless customers that own a BlackBerry Storm, as the Google Maps team recently announced the availability of a fresh version of the Google Maps for mobiles. According to the developers, this version is designed to take advantage of the Storm's internal GPS receiver.
The BlackBerry Storm is the first BlackBerry mobile phone from the carrier's offering that allows My Location to access the GPS location. The Google team states that users who will install the new version of the Google Maps onto their Storm device will be able to see leveraged accuracy for My Location and Latitude.
At the same time, the developers say that functionality has been added based on the needs expressed by users on the Google Mobile User Forum, and that it is expected to make a lot of them rejoice. The owners of a Verizon BlackBerry Storm need to go to m.google.com/maps directly from their BlackBerry's browser, where they will be able to download the latest version of the Google Maps to their device. The enhancements should be noticed right away.
At the same time, Verizon customers that own a BlackBerry, other than Storm, even a handset that features GPS like the BlackBerry 8130, should know that the enhancements will not apply to them as well. Currently, only Storm makes its GPS available for Google Maps. My Location is available in some cases with network positioning or Wi-Fi.
Interestingly enough, although until now Google Maps had not been able to take advantage of the built-in GPS receiver in the Verizon BlackBerry Storm, Google Maps seemed to work just fine on any other carrier as soon as the device was unlocked. Fortunately, the problem seems to have been solved, although only for few of the Verizon's BlackBerry users, but the future will surely bring other changes.