The most useful non-communication app on my phone is most certainly Google Mobile Maps. I suppose there’s some chagrin in saying this considering that Upcoming.org is part of Yahoo! Local now, but honestly, there’s no shame in recognizing quality, and GMM is the best third-party mobile app I’ve ever used, bar none.

Yes, the features are great (the polyline animated step-by-step direction routing is both gee-whiz *and* useful), but what really makes GMM stand out is the amazingly well thought out UI – you know the designers have not just thought things out, but have tweaked it after using it in their daily life. It’s the little things that just work like they should.

For example, tonight I was in San Jose for an event, and was looking for a drug store by the venue. Easy enough to do a business search and get some results back – but where is it in relation to the venue? (which had disappeared with the new search) There was a second of trepadation, as I clicked into “directions there,” but again, GMM didn’t disappoint – there was the location listed at the top “recent searches” listing the venue in the directions tab.

That’s just awesome. And inspirational.