Slowly but surely, iPhone versions of popular Web applications are coming in; I don't doubt that in a year's time you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't have its iPhone counterpart.

The latest app to adorn your iPhone screen is Google Earth, the virtual 3D world atlas we've learned to love on our desktops. Like all other iPhone applications, it's available through the applications store; it started rolling in on Sunday and is now available for almost everyone, depending on your time zone.

The interesting question about this application is, of course, how did Google take advantage of iPhone's capabilities when they created the interface for the app, and the answer is: beautifully. Besides the standard panning and multitouch zooming, you can tilt your iPhone to change the viewing angle or switch it to horizontal view to see a wider picture. Furthermore, both Wikipedia and Panoramio layers of bookmarks are included (you can turn them on and off in the settings), and offline mode also works. if you continue using the application without being connected to a network, it will use cached imagery you've previously viewed. Finally, there's the standard search, available through an icon in the upper left corner, which works pretty much like in the desktop version.

Take a look at the video presentation of Google Earth for iPhone in the video below.

[image credit: CNET]