Google Maps is specifically a navigation application; like the name says, it does maps, letting you search for places, businesses and people in your address book and get directions - but not much else. If you’ve got GPS in your smartphone (or attached by Bluetooth) you can ask it to track your location rather than having to type in where you are but this doesn’t step you through directions automatically.

The interface is focused almost exclusively on the map view, which is good for seeing where things are but not always clear when you want to see all the turns you’re going to make in a route - that involves stepping through the whole route on the map. You have to use the number keys to do this smoothly; scroll away to see other roads and you lose the directions. If there are two businesses that match what you’re searching for, you have to click through to the details to see the street address; that’s easier if you’re looking for something nearby, less helpful if you’re trying to find a specific place in a strange city.

Most searches find useful results but you’ll sometimes find extraneous businesses that have no obvious relevance to what you’re looking for; it is much better at finding post offices than Live Search though. When you find a business you’ll see the phone number and Web site, but you have to navigate through a menu to phone them – it’s simpler in the other applications.

You can’t pick a contact as part of a route - you have to look them up first and then use them for directions and Google Maps will only find contacts that have both an address and a phone number or email address - if you only have an address the contact simply won’t show up in the list but you can go into your address book on Windows Mobile and map the address from there. Live Search had no problem picking up contacts with or without phone numbers and not being able to find people who don’t have an email address or phone number for is ludicrous, too many addresses can’t be found even when you have full address details and it takes more clicks to get directions to or from an address in Google Maps than in Live Search.