App Watch: A look at what publishers are launching in the mobile space.
—Kara Robart
Atlas By Collins
Produced by: Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.
Price: $6.99
Platform: iPad
● If you thought global atlas apps began and ended with Google Earth, now there's Atlas by Collins. Drawing on the HarperCollins UK imprint's rich history in map publishing, Atlas by Collins takes a different approach to geographic exploration. While not as granular as Google Earth and its grainy, stitched-together satellite images, Atlas by Collins focuses on beautiful, well-organized globes, all with full swipe and zoom functionality and arranged under three thematic headings: atlas essentials, people and power, and living earth. With seven distinct globes, each with its own set of overlays (a population globe visualizes distribution, density, urban population, etc.), Atlas by Collins packs a lot of data onto your tablet. As each globe must be downloaded individually, the app can be a bit of a memory hog (minimum 620MB and maxing out at 1.1GB), but individual globes can be removed from, and added back to, the device.