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Google Launches New iPhone Web Application

aLoC said:
Can Safari on the Mac spoof as the iPhone so we can see it?
Click to expand...

If you have the debug menu enabled in Safari, you can choose "Mobile Safari 1.0" as the user agent and you can visit www.google.com it will show the iphone version, but it will be spread across your screen. You can make your safari window smaller to make it seem like an iphone screen I guess.
 
arn said:
It's actually quite nice.

GMail is nicely iPhone formatted.

arn
Click to expand...

Maybe but really hate this forced gmail interface in the iphone/ipod, since you can't access the full gmail version you see on a desktop. (and Mobile Safari is perfectly capable of opening gmail desktop view; when I bought the ipod touch I ccould access the full gmail interface from my ipod but then it stopped working and can only get to that iphone (rather limited) interface.
 
Gotta love google!

Man these guys are always up to great things. I'm surprised how good it works on edge too. Can you imagine when they finally release the iphone sdk, all the amazing things google is gonna do? Incorporate google gears? I bet apple can use this as advertising because it works so flawlessly..
 
nothing too special here, just a google app launcher into minified versions of their same old stuff.

any college sophomore CS student worth his salt should be able to whip this up in a week or two.
 
Mr Skills said:
Are Google Docs and Spreadsheets specially formatted as well? Does this mean that the iPhone can be meaningfully used for editing Word files etc when online now? If so, can someone put up screenshots?
Click to expand...

It looks like the docs are read-only. They have an iPhone optimized view though (you don't need to do a lot of manual zooming in to read the documents).
 
coolbreeze said:
Wow, this is great. Google is hitting home runs with the iPhone integration. I may now buy SpanningSync to link my iCal to Google Calendar. Their Leopard functionality scares me a the moment though (SpanningSync).

I like it so far. Every Google service looks great on my iPhone!

It would be nice if there were more calendar views/functionality, though.
Click to expand...

Before you jump on SpanningSync, there's another contender, gSync, that you might want to look at. The latest beta seems to work correctly on Leopard for me - I never did get SpanningSync to work.
 
chelsel said:
nothing too special here, just a google app launcher into minified versions of their same old stuff.

any college sophomore CS student worth his salt should be able to whip this up in a week or two.
Click to expand...

OK, that is so stupid I'll assume you were joking.

But for those who don't get it, I'll elaborate:

* This doesn't add any functionallity.
* It is about optimizing the info for viewing on a mobile device.
* Notice: you don't need to resize the pages -- the text is already scaled correctly (well, actualy I noticed a couple of broken pages, but let's assume they fix those bugs soon).
* Notice: you don't need to scroll side-to-side on a page at all (except for the buggy pages).
* Notice: the info displayed and buttons presented are paired down. Buttons and menus are redesigned for legibility on the screen. Each screen is redesigned to work best on a mobile screen.
* They've even taken into account the way the iPhone fills in forms.

So this is a pretty sophisticated and intelligently done UI design which makes google apps a lot easier to use on a mobile device.

Definitely not something the average college sophomore could pull off.
 
OK, so what's the story here.

Home: You can search google.
--> You can also search google near iPhone's URL entry
Gmail: You can read gmail
--> You can read gmail on your phone
Cal: You can see your google calendar
--> There's also a native calendar on iPhone.
Reader: Ok, well, I guess this is RSS? I don't have any
More: etc...etc..

It looks like most of this initial set of google tools is already available in some form natively on the iphone. Perhaps, not as feature rich?
 
i had to manually type google.com/m instead of just google.com to get to the site.
 
mainstreetmark said:
OK, so what's the story here.

Home: You can search google.
--> You can also search google near iPhone's URL entry
Gmail: You can read gmail
--> You can read gmail on your phone
Cal: You can see your google calendar
--> There's also a native calendar on iPhone.
Reader: Ok, well, I guess this is RSS? I don't have any
More: etc...etc..

It looks like most of this initial set of google tools is already available in some form natively on the iphone. Perhaps, not as feature rich?
Click to expand...

Looks like youre trying to point out what Im thinking too... "What's the point?"

I have my Gmail come into the native Mail on iPhone. I have my Calendar on the native iCal. I could have searched Google without this web app. So really... Whats the point?
 
richard5mith said:
You can get it in the UK just fine. Simply goto http://www.google.com/m instead of just http://www.google.com and it won't do the country redirect.
Click to expand...
thanks!
still useless for me. i use gmail, but not a gmail account
i use google to simply power my custom domians email...
so it doesnt work in gmail, or calendar... or reader...!!!

Looks like youre trying to point out what Im thinking too... "What's the point?"

I have my Gmail come into the native Mail on iPhone. I have my Calendar on the native iCal. I could have searched Google without this web app. So really... Whats the point?
Click to expand...
same
 
I love it on my iPod touch, and can use it in Canada as long as you set the country preference.

However, the list of applications under "more" is insane to try and choose something, especially with the ability to zoom in deactivated.

Also, if I choose "maps" on the touch, it takes me back to the home page but adds the menu bar again, and if you do it again you can eventually have infinite menu bars within menu bars...
 
mainstreetmark said:
OK, so what's the story here.

Home: You can search google.
--> You can also search google near iPhone's URL entry
Gmail: You can read gmail
--> You can read gmail on your phone
Cal: You can see your google calendar
--> There's also a native calendar on iPhone.
Reader: Ok, well, I guess this is RSS? I don't have any
More: etc...etc..

It looks like most of this initial set of google tools is already available in some form natively on the iphone. Perhaps, not as feature rich?
Click to expand...

Gmail: unlike the iPhone, you can search your e-mail. (Sure, I'll probably still use the iPhone's native email client most of the time, but if google's client keeps getting better...)

Cal: Is inherently available and shared on other computers.

Reader: Maybe you don't have any because it wasn't an option on the phone... now it is
 
I really hope things like google and facebook stay on the web. Honestly don't see a point in having "desktop" apps for such things.

But while its nice to see google doing this, it still feels half-assed; just like most other google things... I mean like I'm all for minimalism and whatnot, but most google things are just plain boring - its as if they're cutting all the corners they can.

Like for instance take facebook; their iPhone site is absolutly gorgeous... This on the other hand... Yawn
 
ncsmith4 said:
Looks like youre trying to point out what Im thinking too... "What's the point?"

I have my Gmail come into the native Mail on iPhone. I have my Calendar on the native iCal. I could have searched Google without this web app. So really... Whats the point?
Click to expand...

- You can't search in you iphone's gmail.... you can on here..
- You can't view your google docs on the phone... you can here ...

and I'm sure there are more useful things that can be done that i haven't discovered ... its very nice (and while the interface is new, what it's offering isn't really (if you knew where to go))
 
Even if you use the native iPhone calendar and mail apps, it's still pretty neat that Google is making so many of their services easily accessible to iPhone users. I used to have multiple bookmarks for Reader, Docs, and Calendar... now I can replace them all with one bookmark to google.com.

I also love that under "more," I can now access an iPhone friendly 'Notebook.' The last time I tried to use Google Notebook on my iPhone, it was a complete disaster.
 
This is actually funny because I just used google today, this layout popped up, and I didn't think twice about it. After I just checked macrumors.com, I was like oh, it's a new feature and not an old one:eek:
 
jmmo20 said:
Maybe but really hate this forced gmail interface in the iphone/ipod, since you can't access the full gmail version you see on a desktop. (and Mobile Safari is perfectly capable of opening gmail desktop view; when I bought the ipod touch I ccould access the full gmail interface from my ipod but then it stopped working and can only get to that iphone (rather limited) interface.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. Right where it says "View Google in: Mobile | Classic." Just select classic.
 
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