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Apple and Google Working on More "New Things"

I am going to be quite upset if .mac and gmail do some sort of merger, as I would hate to have to start paying for a service that should stay free.
 
J Radical said:
If anything that speaks more of the success of the current office UI. MS monopolized what people expect from an office productivity suite in the same way they did with an operating system.

To say 2007 is confusing is ironic coming from an apple fan. Office 2007 is revolutionary, changing a product so radically took a lot of guts on the part of MS, and the results speak for themselves: reviewers have hailed it as a paradigm shift in how such software should work.

MS is a victim of it's size and user base. Office is an expensive piece of kit and the current incarnation suits most people just fine (much as is the case with vista) Apple has a different demographic and much smaller base and so has been able to move it's software along quickly.

This is totally off topic, my initial post was just addressing the notion of 'google office' being some kind of apple alternative. I use NeoOffice and like it, if money were no object I'd buy MS Office as its a better product.

The good news for open source is that file formats should become standardized in future allowing seamless interoperability between users. The bad news is that the development of open office is a much bigger undertaking than say that of developing a web browser (mozilla), and it's therefore difficult to envisage Open Office ever being better than the offering of a multi billion dollar monopoly.

Don't forget, an office suite is much more than a word processor.
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Office obtained its' lofty position by being offered for peanuts and driving its competitors out of business. Each product was inferior to something offered by someone else. The UI was a direct result of being part of the same company making the OS. However, every revision required a trained investigator to locate where something had been moved to, or renamed, and then moved to. As for the apps:

Word - Good product
Excel - Yuk! Worst resource hog ever designed. More memory leaks than the Whitehouse.
Access - Just OK. Works for small workgroups.
Powerpoint - decent, but not exceptional.
Outlook - Took a long time to get the app working right. Too much overhead, but OK app.

Hardly the stellar product you view it as.
 
I really don't see it too farfetched to see Apple and Google merge....probably after Jobs steps down.

I hope Apple will let .mac be hosted on Google's servers. Make .mac free.
 
J Radical said:
Vague-tastic

If .mac was shifted to google servers/services I'd be a happy chap. .mac is outrageously priced!
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Remember gMail and assuming any other services they offer are paid for by adversiting. The revenue coming from Google being able to offer a better level of targeting based on them indexing your information and connections between that information.

dotmac services are what you pay to not have those services sponsered by advertising.

Sure it's not like Google is selling your data to anyone and dotmac could be a better deal, but the price differential comes from a different business model and who the company is beholden to in generating to revenue.

Me i'd rather pay even thou Google promiss to "do no evil", if only because it means the service provider is working for me.
 
YouTube+Apple TV

The real reason Apple TV has been delayed is to ensure proper integration with You Tube and Google Video.
Apple knows iTunes current content isn't enough of a compelling package.
Wouldn't surprise me to see some basic iPod style game capability built in.
 
Frisco said:
Office 2007 is a confusing piece of software. Very few companies will be upgrading any time soon.
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Office 2007 is the most advanced and user friendly office software available wether it be free or payed for. It has a simple and easy feel to it, I have already upgraded to it and will settle for nothing lesser.
 
I'd love to see tighter integration between Apple's desktop apps and Google's online apps. For example, Apple should just buy Spanning Sync and implement seamless 2-way syncing between Calendar, Google Contacts & Address Book, email, etc. There should also be a plug-in for iWeb to work with Google Pages, a plug-in for Pages (and Numbers?) to open and edit Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and so forth.

Apple does desktop apps beautifully, but .Mac can't hold a candle to Google Apps. Apple should convert .Mac accounts into Google Apps Premier accounts and focus on creating a plug-in architecture for their desktop apps that would allow them to interoperate with online apps and storage.
 
Di9it8 said:
What about Picasa??;)
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you can already get the iphoto add-on that lets you drop stuff to your google photos using picasa. but, maybe they can make this work better and let you upload to the entire near 3gigs you get with gmail. instead of the 250MB you get now.
 
I think there are a lot of great possibilities that could come from increasing cooperation between Google and Apple. Items like .Mac and iChat partnerships are definitely major possibilities that could mean an expanded set of free or low-cost services for every Mac user.

I've written a post on my blog about it (you can check out the link, I didn't want to clutter the board with a huge post).

This is going to be an interesting year ;)
 
bleachthru said:
I am going to be quite upset if .mac and gmail do some sort of merger, as I would hate to have to start paying for a service that should stay free.
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That would make me mad too if they charge for it. If they don't charge then it would be good.
 
So... Name???

Do we call this new company partnership Appogle or Goopple?

Goopple to me sounds silly, while Appogle has a certain ring to it...

Yeah, Appogle it is...
 
Since Google and Apple are partners, I would expect the docs and page creator would work with safari when they are released.
 
weldon said:
For example, Apple should just buy Spanning Sync and implement seamless 2-way syncing between Calendar, Google Contacts & Address Book, email, etc.
Click to expand...

A little off topic- do you use Spanning Sync and does it work well? I'm looking into a solution for our office calendars.
 
Ummm

I don't think .Mac would ever be free unless Apple did use Google's servers, and they agreed to keep everyone's login names and websites/homepages. There is no way I am going to give that feature up.

It would be a great world if Google and Apple merged or at least made some great products.
 
psychofreak said:
I don't like the office ribbon system. It is great for some people, especially inexperienced people, who can now find what they want to do, without searching through menus...BUT, on a small laptop screen, the ribbon takes a LOT of screen real estate...
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter for Mac users, since Microsoft already said that Office 2008 for Mac will not include the ribbon interface.
 
mrthieme said:
Maybe I'm missing something here, I understand the Google/.mac subject, I get the Google video/:apple: tv connection, but what would Google have to do with Apple developing a tablet?
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(damn... lost my whole post)

Good question.
I wonder who actually ASKED Google about an Apple-Google tablet?

Just thinking about Google's products and needs, merged with Apple's products and needs, is a good exercise in creative thinking.

... Apple: Future iPhone, historic Newton, laptop design history, OSX, iPod
+ Pages, iTunes, iPhoto, iCal (some new Groupware??), Safari...
... Google: Search directories, gmail, google office, maps, calendar, photos,
+ Wireless service in some US cities
(what have I missed that may be significant?)

Still, it's not even a rumour. It's a question someone asked Google, which Google did not answer.
 
I think this will be really really great.

I am real interested in have the iWork suite and Google office apps being integrated together. I think this would give a great advantage over microsoft office. Imagine being at your computer, and you update your calender with some new appointments and it syncs automatically to google calender, and then you go and have a meeting and some of those appointments get changed and so you just log into google apps on someone else's computer, because for whatever reason you dont have yours, and it updates the appointments on there..and then when you get back to your computer..iCal prompts you to resync your calender, and all the new changes are there automatically.

Thats just one example, but I really think it could be great. I'm intereted in using .mac, but I really dont need it that bad to have to pay for it, but if it was integrated with my google mail account and I could get it for free and have the 3gig of space that I have with google. I'd do it for sure.

I dont think there is any reason this wouldn't be good for both companies and for consumers alike
 
Is it just me, or maybe they should start by making gmail work properly in Safari? Don't tell me that neither of their engineers have noticed that gmail's edit message tool bar doesn't work in Safari, and neither does the drop down menu in the right hand corner of an open email? Oh, and I forgot having to click in the window with the mouse before using keyboard shortcuts in gmail.

Take these rumors with a grain of salt.
 
lazyrighteye said:
I made similar comments a few weeks back, but I think Google may play a big role in Leopard's supposed "secret features."

Based on nothing but my own observations, I wonder if Google's online slew of office-type apps will make their way into the Apple stable?
Possible these could be Finder-based?

And others suggesting a Google + .Mac Voltron makes me grin.
Currently, .Mac is a joke in the bang for buck department, IMHO.
Click to expand...

i think your right.
 
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