Google Earth 5.1 released; no longer considered beta
by Google Earth Blog on Nov.19, 2009, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA
Google Earth 5.1 has been out for a few months now, and it's been very well-received. It had a slew of bug fixes, some small new features, and some exceptional speed improvements. That's not to say it was perfect.
Over the past few months, Google has been refining it and now they've released an updated version of Google Earth 5.1 and they've removed the "beta" label from it. This update will take you from version 5.1.3509.4636 to 5.1.3533.1731. The Google update tools aren't showing this release yet, so you'll need to download it directly from the Google Earth site.
Google hasn't said a whole lot about the update, other than it has "a few more tweaks and bug fixes". However, for Mac users this update includes the Google Earth plug-in when you install it, much like the Windows version has in recent releases.
The only known bug fix that I'm aware of was from this critter that's been around for a little while. If you were running Windows Vista or 7 with more than four gigs of RAM, 3D buildings would often fail to fully load. I experienced this issue on my new computer, and I'm very happy to report that this update fixes the problem!
Beyond that, I'm sure there were quite a few other small fixes -- have you noticed any in particular?