Today, the first day of Macworld, Google announced new improvements to the
integrated Google experience on iPhone. The previous version, launched just
over a month ago, brought together our suite of web applications —
including Search, Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and more — into one easy-to-use
interface. Since then, we’ve streamlined the interface even further, making
the applications faster and improving their usability. Some of the
improvements announced today include:
* Improved UI: The applications look and feel slicker, and they are easier
to activate, navigate and use via a touch-screen.
* Customization of default tabs: Now Google users can have easy access to
their favorite applications by customizing the applications that appear on
the Google.com menu bar. Users simply choose their favorite Google
applications to bring them to the front menu, ensuring that they’ll be
close at hand whenever they’re needed. Switching between applications is
effortless, as users only need to sign in once to access their Gmail,
Calendar, Reader, Docs, and Picasa accounts.
* Speedier Gmail: New emails will automatically show up so there’s no need
to manually refresh inboxes. And the new auto-complete feature for contacts
makes composing emails faster than ever.
* Speedier Calendar: With our new month view, users can glance at an entire
month of appointments.
* iGoogle: Now Google users can access their iGoogle gadgets on the iPhone.
Everything they’ve customized on their iGoogle homepage including weather,
stocks, and news feeds now appear on their iPhones. To go to iGoogle,
simply click on the iGoogle link on the Home tab. You can customize your
iGoogle page on your computer at www.igoogle.com.
These new features provide iPhone users with a desktop-like Google web
application experience in terms of ease-of-use, speed, and feature richness
but optimized for the iPhone. This experience is made possible by the
iPhone’s general usability and the capabilities of its web browser,
combined with Google’s innovative mobile web applications. We plan to
expand this experience to international versions of the iPhone and to other
platforms that offer similar usability and browser capabilities. One of our
goals is to support platforms that are fulfilling the promise of the mobile
web – like the iPhone – and to ultimately deliver unique and compelling
mobile experiences that improve people’s daily lives.
To get the new Google experience on the iPhone, users simply navigate to
www.google.com on the iPhone Safari browser. To see the full range of
mobile products and services available from Google, visit
mobile.google.com. And if you’re at Macworld please stop by our booth
(number 1268 in the South hall) for a live demo!
