Authors, no doubt, may continue to have a problem with Google willfully ignoring copyright for their own content lust, while mobile users jump up and down in glee, like one author and mobile accomplisher, Andy Ihnatko is doing on his Celestial Waste of Bandwidth:
Yes, all 1.5 million public-domain texts in the Google Books project are now available to mobile users, behind a fairly awesome, slick interface. [...] And I scroll down a bit and find many titles of interest. I give one of ‘em a tap, and soon I’m looking at a very credible little mobile book reader. [..] Good golly. If Google is evil, then they’re a Doctor Doom sort of evil. What’s a little evil, when the totalitarian dictator takes such wonderful, indulgent care of his subjects?
[Video note: Interesting to see the Google iPhone in the video above is missing the iTunes and App Store icons... and the YouTube App (YouTube being, you know, owned by Google). Google Mobile App got a prime spot though!]
Still catching up on the Google news, and this one is more confusing to us then most. A while back we mentioned — regretfully — that Google had stopped offering their iPhone optimized version of iGoogle because, to be blunt, they wanted to offer every handset a similar experience and few other handsets could match the quality of the iPhone version.
Now, however, Google has announced that while they aren’t bringing the iGoogle page back, they are adding an iPhone optimized version of their bare-bones Gmail Tasks WebApp:
starting today, you can manage your task list from your iPhone or Android device, and access it from any xhtml enabled phone. (Mine’s always with me, in whichever jeans I’m wearing.) Just go to gmail.com/tasks from your phone’s browser and log in. If you already use the version of Tasks in Gmail Labs, you’ll see the same task list that’s always in sync. We focused on making it super easy and fast to update your Gmail task list — you can add new tasks and check off completed ones, no matter where you are (like in a meeting or at the grocery store) even when you’re in the bathroom.
Inconsistent but potentially appreciated. But will Tasks on the iPhone be the glory of Gmail email, or the fail of Gmail contacts? Anyone tried this out yet? Let us know how it works for you!
The official Google Blog has announced that its location-based Latitude service is on it’s way:
with Latitude, not only can you see your friends’ locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. It’s a fun way to feel close to the people you care about. [...] Ready to share your location? If you have a mobile smartphone, visit google.com/latitude on your phone’s web browser to download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude. Latitude is available on Blackberry, S60, and Windows Mobile, and will be available on Android in the next few days. We expect it will be coming to the iPhone, through Google Mobile App, very soon.
Interesting that it’s coming to the App Store available Google Mobile App (which added the Voice Search feature recently) and not the built in Google Maps app (which Apple develops and would require a firmware release to update).
See the video above for important privacy information. And we have to ask, is this a fun and convenient toy, or the next step towards “Big Brother” all hidden up in “Little Brother” clothes? Is Google parsing all your friends’ and family’s location useful, or terrifying?
UPDATE 2: The error turns out to be the human kind (via GeekBrief.tv):
We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes.
UPDATE: Looks like it’s fixed. Anyone still seeing the problem?
Looks like Google Search may be having some trouble this morning! As I write this, every search on Google, including searches for Google, get flagged as “may harm your computer” and if you click the link, you get an intercept page with an even bigger warning.
I’m guessing the engineers in Mountain View are on it, so enjoy the fun-making while it lasts!
NOTE: It only seems to be broken (for me!) if you’re not logged in (i.e. not logged into Gmail or any other Google service). If you’re logged in, Google search returns results normally.
Christina Warren from TUAW wrote on Twitter that Google recently dumped the iPhone optimized version of iGoogle and now simply redirects users to a generic mobile version instead.
What in Google’s green earth could they be thinking? One of our readers, Jesse, wrote in to share this forum post from Google employee, Paul:
“Hey everyone, I have an update for you. We’ve decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We’ve found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones — we want to ensure you’ll all see the same version.
Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren’t compatible with most mobile browsers.
We’ve got several articles in our Help Center about the mobile experience on iGoogle, which you can find in our Help Center [link].”
Lowest common denominator much?
Jesse also let us know that Jailbreak users have a workaround: spoofing their browser via the Cydia app, Useragent Faker.
So is this Google playing it fair, playing favorites for Android (which still has functioning Gmail in its iGoogle mobile according to Christina, unlike the iPhone or BlackBerry), or just doing the mobile equivalent of re-coding all sites to standardize on the original version of Netscape?
manually configure IMAP using the “Other” menu option by following the instructions this video [...]
From then on, the iPhone’s little trashcan icon will archive your mail. You might notice that messages you archive on your phone are actually being added to a new “Deleted Messages” label in your Gmail account — but they’re right in “All Mail” and searchable, just the way you want them.
If you’re a hardcore Gmail user, let us know what you think of this, and how it’s working for you!
Those rapscallions at Google sure do seem to be having fun with the iPhone. Not only did they pull a fast one on Apple by using private API’s to work their lift-the-phone-to-activate-voice-search magic, they snuck a little super-swipe activated easter egg in for the rest of us! Says the Google Mobile blog:
One evening in Zurich, after a late night cake run, we decided that our iPhone app, Google Mobile App with Voice Search, could do with a little bling. The result of this is a few extra options hidden below the preferences on the Settings tab. Trust us, they’re down there… it just might take some perseverance to get to the bottom of things. Just keep trying!
Spoiler alert! Tap the cog icon to go to the settings screen, then swipe up over and over again to make the Bells and Whistles menu appear. From there, you can pick a new theme color, choose Chicken or Monkey as a sound, turn on a Live Waveform, and choose to Open Links in App.
Pimping out your Google Mobile App? Tell us your new fav combination!
I’m sure that a few of you, like me, have been avoiding using the Google Search Bar in Safari in favor of the Google app. Avoiding it not because the Google App is that awesome (it is), but because the search results page in Safari that comes up when you use the Google Search Bar wasn’t optimized for Safari, but instead looked like the regular desktop page.
Well, quick tip if you’ve been avoiding that bar: it’s been mobile optimized while you were away. No need to avoid it anymore. The above search results screen shot shows what the new (to me, anyway) results page looks like. Chad emailed in (with more than a few exclamation points) showing the same.
Treat this Public Service Announcement like all PSAs — if you don’t care, move along, nothing to see here, threat-level orange, and all that. But If you’ve been keeping away from that search bar, it’s time to come back home.
Google has dropped the iCal bomb. That’s right. Buh-bye third party intermediaries, hello built-in Google Calendar support for Apple’s open source CalDAV standard:
The Google Calendar team is proud to announce the public release of our support for the CalDAV protocol. You can now use Apple iCal with your Google Calendar, so you can work even when you’re offline, sync almost instantly, respond to invitations from others and see the free/busy data of your friends and coworkers.
You can get both the setup program and the download from Google code source. (Now if we could only get some similar Google love for CardDAV as part of a Google Contacts revamp…)
If anyone has a chance to try it out, let us know how it works for getting your gCal into MobileMe or onto your iPhone (I’m — right now very sadly — transitioning to the HTC FUZE for the Round Robin, so let me live vicariously through you!)
Street-View is probably the single most visually impressive feature in iPhone OS 2.2 — you can almost hear the next iPhone TV ad being revved up with it already! Problem is, it’s almost hidden away like an easter egg. If you’re still having trouble finding it, The iPhone Lens wants you to know you’re not alone. More than that, they’ve set up a handy how-to to get you up and viewing streets asap.
