Maps on mobile is a big thing. Nokia know this, which is why they made one of their big USP's a freebie, all of a sudden giving free access to maps on thousands of smart devices. A big rival to Nokia in the mapping arena is Google, with its excellent Google maps service, and BlackBerry owners have just received a major update, with Google Maps 4.0 now available.
One of the major enhancements in this new version is the option to search for your destination by voice. Simply hold down the green dial button on your BlackBerry device, and speak the address, and voila! You can use voice search to look up addresses, and also for 'Perfect Pizza, Mayfair' or just search for any local pizza place by speaking 'pizza restaurant'.
Another addition is the integration of the new Google Buzz service into Google maps. By activating the Buzz layer, you will be able to see updates by location, as well as share pictures, news and other options. If Buzz is not your thing it can be de-activated in the settings menu on your device.
One of the options that has been available to users of Android devices for a while is personalised search, which uses your search history to make suggestions based on what you are looking for. So if you had searched for Perfect Pizza in the past, searching for a pizza restaurant generally will highlight that as a previous choice. If you type a search, previously searched terms will appear as a drop down box based on what you searched for previously also.
Overall these improvements make Google Maps one of those must have applications on any smartphone; to download the latest version of the Maps simply point your phone browser to m.google.com and follow the on screen instructions from there.