Is Google holding back iPhone app development?

[01jamcon]

So as we all know now, Google and Apple are engaged in smartphone WAAAARRRR

It soon becomes clear that the Google-owned properties (Youtube, maps) aren't best served by the native iPhone apps for them, e.g. Youtube is MUCH more functional through Safari and Google Maps on an Android is supposed to blow away the iPhone version (turn-by-turn directions anyone?). This isn't to mention other Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Latitude etc that don't even have native Google-produced apps.

So my question is; who's at fault for holding back these app developments and why are the best features only accessible through Safari web apps instead of being native?

 

[skimmymilk]

Well I do have both the iPhone and the Droid... both have its pros and cons... but the Droid's navigation is sooo much better. Turn by turn functionality is awesome. It's kind of a cross between google maps and an actual Tom Tom Navigation device.

Those other Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Latitude etc that you mentioned which don't even have native Google-produced apps will be coming soon. It's in the market and Google is constantly working to push its technology as long as the market is demanding it, which it seems like it is.

Jeff Bulas did a great blog about 22 reasons why a business needs an app, and Nielsen Media said that by 2011, 50% of phone users will utilize a smartphone! What does that mean? This industry is growing, demand is increasing, and that means that the Google and Apple war is no where close to finishing. Other reports show that App downloads projected for 2010 will reach 6 billion!

______________
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.
iPhone - 3GS
Droid - Android Version 2.2
sam.kim@mobiinteractive.com

 

[01jamcon]

Well I do have both the iPhone and the Droid... both have its pros and cons... but the Droid's navigation is sooo much better. Turn by turn functionality is awesome. It's kind of a cross between google maps and an actual Tom Tom Navigation device.

Those other Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Latitude etc that you mentioned which don't even have native Google-produced apps will be coming soon. It's in the market and Google is constantly working to push its technology as long as the market is demanding it, which it seems like it is.

Jeff Bulas did a great blog about 22 reasons why a business needs an app, and Nielsen Media said that by 2011, 50% of phone users will utilize a smartphone! What does that mean? This industry is growing, demand is increasing, and that means that the Google and Apple war is no where close to finishing. Other reports show that App downloads projected for 2010 will reach 6 billion!

Uhm, thanks for the stats; 6 billion app downloads seems like a crazy number, or at least it would've just 2-3 years ago.

Yer, I definitely hope you're right and Google is working on bringing its full range of apps to more platforms.

 

[aohus]

i just switched from iOS to android mobile platform and the competition is stiff. android OS is really good at assisting the user to access information as quickly as possible. three features android has that iOS lacks.

1) native navigation app

2) voice search, voice actions, voice commands

3) swype feature

 

[01jamcon]

i just switched from iOS to android mobile platform and the competition is stiff. android OS is really good at assisting the user to access information as quickly as possible. three features android has that iOS lacks.

1) native navigation app

2) voice search, voice actions, voice commands

3) swype feature

Ok, a few questions from an iPhone user:

1) Is navigation comparable to that of a Tom-tom in terms of quality of locations, speed of navigation, ease of use?

2) Voice search on an iPhone is a bit hit and miss, how accurately have you found it to work on Android?

3) I've seen the swype videos, to me it doesn't look particularly useful for how I type (two thumbs), have you adjusted to it well? Is it any quicker/better for typing?

 

[Daveoc64]

So as we all know now, Google and Apple are engaged in smartphone WAAAARRRR

It soon becomes clear that the Google-owned properties (Youtube, maps) aren't best served by the native iPhone apps for them, e.g. Youtube is MUCH more functional through Safari and Google Maps on an Android is supposed to blow away the iPhone version (turn-by-turn directions anyone?). This isn't to mention other Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Latitude etc that don't even have native Google-produced apps.

So my question is; who's at fault for holding back these app developments and why are the best features only accessible through Safari web apps instead of being native?

Apple.

They make the Apps that are included with the iPhone.

Note how it is not Google Maps that comes with the phone.

Apple has very specific ways of doing things, and even Google has to play by the rules.

 

[aohus]

Ok, a few questions from an iPhone user:

1) Is navigation comparable to that of a Tom-tom in terms of quality of locations, speed of navigation, ease of use?

2) Voice search on an iPhone is a bit hit and miss, how accurately have you found it to work on Android?

3) I've seen the swype videos, to me it doesn't look particularly useful for how I type (two thumbs), have you adjusted to it well? Is it any quicker/better for typing?

1) navigation is an extremely enjoyable experience. very smooth transitions on the map, so it doesn't jerk around while the map is moving, its really smooth. you get pretty much all the features of google maps desktop version in navigation. you can also add text to speech packs so you can get different style of voices (british, australian, american accents, etc).

2) voice search is extremely accurate and was greatly improved in 2.2 where you can now speak long sentences as long as you enunciate. when im on the road i just hold down the search button on the Droid X and speak what i have to say. The official google demonstration gives a good example of its strengths.

3) swype is definitely a revolutionary feature. its easy to learn and makes texting a breeze. i wasn't much of a texter but have been increasingly texting due to the ease of use. i can just use one hand to text instead of two.

 

[kasakka]

Like Daveoc64 said, it's probably more of an Apple issue. They are ultimately the ones who decide what features each app has. I hope they never implement YouTube comments, but would love to see street view etc implemented in Maps.

There is an iOS version of Swype in the making apparently, but it is not known if it will be accepted, especially since it would require replacing the stock keyboard. I really hope Apple cooperates with the makers of Swype so it can be implemented, it seems like a truly great feature.

Does voice search on Android work in languages other than English? In my experience for example the voice search in Google Mobile App on the iPhone didn't work too well - I had no idea what the suggested "New Jersey accent" was supposed to sound like. I wish they gave options for "classic Brit", "unintelligible Scottish" and "WW2 movie Nazi commander" accents.

 

[shandyman]

2) Voice search on an iPhone is a bit hit and miss, how accurately have you found it to work on Android?

the Vlingo app seems to supplement the iPhone voice controls quite well, can search the net, find places on google maps, dictate texts, emails and facebook status updates all with that on top of the native voice control stuff of controlling the ipod and calling people, etc.

 

[The Phazer]

Like Daveoc64 said, it's probably more of an Apple issue. They are ultimately the ones who decide what features each app has. I hope they never implement YouTube comments, but would love to see street view etc implemented in Maps.

Street View is implemented in Maps.

But yes, you're right - the Google apps are falling behind, and it's primarily Apple's fault, they develop all the included apps (indeed, I was told by someone at Google the reason for the YouTube webapp was that Google themselves were frustrated at how terrible the iPhone YouTube app is, but are powerless to change it).

Phazer

 

[01jamcon]

the Vlingo app seems to supplement the iPhone voice controls quite well, can search the net, find places on google maps, dictate texts, emails and facebook status updates all with that on top of the native voice control stuff of controlling the ipod and calling people, etc.

Tried vlingo and google mobile app as well as the in-built voice stuff and like I said, it works well sometimes, other times it comes up with ridiculous suggestions. Must be my weird accent then

 

[01jamcon]

Like Daveoc64 said, it's probably more of an Apple issue. They are ultimately the ones who decide what features each app has. I hope they never implement YouTube comments

On the safari web version, the comments are hidden by default, but you can show them if you wish to read the usual perverted/racist/crazy comments.

 

[kas23]

Yes, these are totally Apple produced Apps. Please change title from "Google" to "Apple" or close thread. It may confuse people that anyone besides Apple is responsible for the iPhones slow development.

 

[Apple...]

i just switched from iOS to android mobile platform and the competition is stiff. android OS is really good at assisting the user to access information as quickly as possible. three features android has that iOS lacks.

1) native navigation app

2) voice search, voice actions, voice commands

3) swype feature

I'm pretty sure Apple's working on implementing all three of these features in iOS at some point, except Swype, as Apple will probably make their own "easy-to-use" variant of it.

 

[maflynn]

So my question is; who's at fault for holding back these app developments and why are the best features only accessible through Safari web apps instead of being native?

I'm hesitant to use the word fault, but I do believe that google is not developing their apps for the iPhone or at least its not a front burner priority for them.

By not having these apps, google can highlight the differences between an android platform and the iOS. Plus, it seems like apple may be developing apps that will compete directly with google's offering, like turn by turn navigation/google maps. Google I'm sure is aware of this and so they'll not sink too much money into developing those apps knowing that apple will possibly boot them off

 

[TruckdriverSean]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

Apple has indeed held back some Google products from the iPhone (GoogleVoice, Latitude, etc.) But I think Google is now likely to keep as much held back as possible as well, leaving "premium" google products for phones running Android. A good example being GoogleVoice. Apple finally allowed VOIP (over 3G) and background API's for VOIP to multitask, yet GoogleVoice hasn't returned.

 

[maflynn]

Apple has indeed held back some Google products from the iPhone (GoogleVoice, Latitude, etc.)

You have to wonder how much google is holding back because of frustration with apple, like that of google voice. It may be a little like adobe giving up on iOS after trying to work with apple for many years.

I'm sure if egos were put aside and cooler heads prevailed we would have seen flash on the iPhone. It works very well on android, it does not crash the phone and it does not impact the battery. The very arguments that Jobs gave to reject flash.

My point is not to resurrect the flash debate but rather how adobe got tired of apple's games and moved on, I wonder if we're seeing something similar with google.

 

[01jamcon]

I'm hesitant to use the word fault, but I do believe that google is not developing their apps for the iPhone or at least its not a front burner priority for them.

By not having these apps, google can highlight the differences between an android platform and the iOS. Plus, it seems like apple may be developing apps that will compete directly with google's offering, like turn by turn navigation/google maps. Google I'm sure is aware of this and so they'll not sink too much money into developing those apps knowing that apple will possibly boot them off

As others have pointed out, its almost certainly Apple who's in charge of developing the Youtube and Maps apps while using Google's intellectual property. So that answers the question as to who isn't developing these apps further. And while they really should be taking a leaf out of Google's book on how they can be improved, they might not really care at the moment, and might be holding off on producing worthy updates until absolutely forced to.

Personally, I'd like to see Google introduce fully native versions of all their products instead of keeping them as 'differentiators' for Android. I'd even be happy to pay for most of them as long as they are the absolute best apps they can be. Number 1 apps in multiple categories would show Apple they can't rest on their laurels.

 

[Carniphage]

Google makes money through advertising..

..and 50% of all mobile advertising is watched on iOS devices.

It would therefore be dumb for Google to treat the iPhone with anything other than the greatest degree of respect.

C.

 

[kas23]

I'm hesitant to use the word fault, but I do believe that google is not developing their apps for the iPhone or at least its not a front burner priority for them.

By not having these apps, google can highlight the differences between an android platform and the iOS. Plus, it seems like apple may be developing apps that will compete directly with google's offering, like turn by turn navigation/google maps. Google I'm sure is aware of this and so they'll not sink too much money into developing those apps knowing that apple will possibly boot them off

Problem here is these are NOT Google's Apps. Youtube and Maps are both complete Apple engineered products. Google does NOT develop them.

 

[kas23]

Personally, I'd like to see Google introduce fully native versions of all their products instead of keeping them as 'differentiators' for Android. I'd even be happy to pay for most of them as long as they are the absolute best apps they can be. Number 1 apps in multiple categories would show Apple they can't rest on their laurels.

This is not Google's choice to be made. I'm sure they have tried to make native apps for all of their products only to have Apple reject them from the App Store. Google Voice first comes to mind. So, it is Apple that is forcing the differences, not Google. And Apple would never let Google dominate the App Store like that anyways. As some here stupidly say, if you want Google products, get an Android phone.