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Dan Warne06 March 2010, 7:38 PM
A Sydney company has come out with the bold claim that it is better than Google Street View – at least for Australia's major icons.
Google this week announced it would ride past some top Australian icons with the "Street View Trike", but Sydney firm Panedia says it has "already done it, and BETTER!" It has set up a website (which will doubtlessly draw the ire of Google's lawyers) called BetterThanStreetView.com.
The company claims it is "truly the David to Google's Goliath" and despite having a budget hundreds of times below that of Street View, "a small group of consummate professionals has produced many thousands of professionally photographed panoramas all over Australia in recent years."
It says the David and Goliath metaphor extends to its photography technology; "where Google takes months to years to get its streetviews online after driving past a place, Panedia, when photographing events like the Australian Grand Prix, can have panoramas online within hours of being shot."
The company provided example images of Google Street View vs Panedia in Surfers Paradise.
Naturally, it would only be fair to Google to point out that while Panedia might have much better quality images, Google's coverage is millions of times broader than Panedia's. Still, an interesting comparison – and an area which Google will no doubt seek to improve in the future.
Panedia came to APC's attention when its chief photographer (and APC reader) Aaron Spence happened to be walking past the Sydney Apple Store at just the right moment, when Apple pulled down the cladding, unveiling the store for all to see. (That was his story anyway – we reckon there's a fair chance Apple Australia hired him without the authorization of head-office and told him to leak it to select media to drum up buzz for the Apple Store, but only Apple and Aaron will ever know...)