iPhone Available in Israel Weeks

My brother in Israel called me to ask me if I saw the YNet article (Google translate version) where they say the iPhone is coming to Israel in a "few days." I said, "that can't be true," I would have heard something about that. The article says, in English:

Few days before Apple's mobile is expected to land in Israel, we took the software a test drive and returned with the conclusions of the type of fitness using the navigation software the different types of users.

My brother then said the article even shows a picture of Google Maps on the iPhone showing street level data. I said, Google Maps doesn't support Israeli street level data on the iPhone or in their API, yet. But I was wrong, they must have just added it. Both the API and my iPhone have street level data!

Update: I was just sent an article from Walla.co.il (See in English) which confirms the iPhone is coming to Israel December 10th.

This is good news in that our iPhone apps that use Israel mapping data can have more accurate street level longitudes and latitudes. Google added street level data to the web version over a year ago and more recently was tinkering with hebrew on Google Maps. But this is brand new, street level via the Google Maps API (which I believe powers Google Maps on the iPhone.

Here is a picture of Israel street level data on my iPhone now:

Here is an older picture:

Yes, the API and iPhone (which uses the API) was blank, now it has stuff.

Here are some pictures of popular locations in Israel with street level data on my iPhone within Israel, click on them for larger images:

Share this article!