All Things Mobile and Wireless
Everyone seems to think the recent Google+ 2.0.0 for iPhone update is the best thing since the sliced bread. I, however, have a very different opinion of the updated app: It is terrible in general and provides an especially awful experience on an iPad.
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Google finally announced its Google Drive product that competes with Dropbox, Box, Microsoft SkyDrive and other cloud storage products. One of the effects of this launch is that the Google Docs for Android app was updated and renamed Google Drive. Installing the updated and renamed app on my Android tablet resulted in its widget disappearing from my home screen. This was remedied by installing the updated widget. But, it would have been nice if Google had done that for me during the update.
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Microsoft let Windows Mobile users know that the Windows Mobile Marketplace will shut down on May 9, 2012 and that Applications and games acquired from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service installed on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone will continue to work after the service is discontinued on May 9, 2012. However, additional downloads of these applications and games from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service will no longer be available. This may not be a huge issue for people who did not buy apps through the marketplace (I did not). But, it may be a problem for those who did and need to hard reset a Windows Mobile device to restore functionality. People who bought Windows Mobile phones in the fall of 2010 before Windows Phone was released will have a less than 2 year old phone that cannot restore some apps in the event of a loss or hard reset.
This situation also illustrates a problem with all of the single platform stores that have sprung up since Apple led the way with its ultra-successful iOS App Store, however. And, it makes one pause to wonder what will happen if Microsoft ever stops supporting the Windows 8 app store since WOA users cannot get apps outside of that venue.
The 1960s Lily Tomlin video above may be useful in attempting to understand Microsoft’s (and perhaps Google too) customer service attitude.
Google just updated the Google Docs for Android app.
Collaborate and edit anywhere with the updated Google Docs for Android
This means that: You’ll see updates in real time as others type on their computers, tablets and phones, and you can just tap the document to join in.
The person in the video shown copying and pasting on a phone is a lot faster and accurate than anyone I’ve ever seen. I always have a bit of a struggle getting the right start and end positions.
According to Google’s Android Dashboard Platform Versions more than 40% of phone accessing the Android Market are using versions older than 2.3 (pre-Gingerbread). 55.5% are at version 2.3. A mere 0.6% are version 4.x (Ice Cream Sandwich) that was released late last year. Android devices have a hit or miss (mostly miss) track record for getting updated to the latest release. Part of the reason lies with hardware requirements. But, much of the delay (vs. not being updated at all because of hardware requirements) appears to be due to Android phone makers mucking about with the user interface by replacing it with their own. This, in part, explains why we see a huge percentage of devices running ancient versions of Android.
Google announced a move earlier today that aims to put a stop to it in an blog item simply titled.
It seems like forever, but it took Google a couple of months to finally add search to the Google+ app for Android. The announcement appears, appropriately enough, in Punit Soni’s (Lead Product Manager, Google+ Games and Mobile) Google+ stream:
AND a new version of the Android app 
We made good on our promise eh?
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Received my Google Nexus One Android phone a few hours ago. The video sample above was transcoded (by Google) from the original 3gp file recorded on the Nexus One. The video sample below is a video recorded using the Qik for Android app.
Sorry for the difficult to see screen demo on the Droid. Brightness cranked up but still nearly impossible to see. But, I wanted to quickly put up some kind of demo of Google Goggles running on a Droid. So, here it is such as it is
I posted two items over on my MobileAppsToday blog…
Google Sync (Beta) for iPhone & Windows Mobile: Think Before You Sync!
Microsoft MyPhone Service Free, But Not Comparable to Apple MobileMe
…that got me wondering if:
1. The Google Sync for iPhone & Windows Mobile made Outlook obsolete
2. If it made Microsoft’s MyPhone service obsolete before it even went live?
Microsoft stopped shipping Outlook with some lower-priced Microsoft Office bundles a while back. And, Windows Mobile smartphone hardware vendors stopped including Outlook with those phones around the same time. So, it is cheaper and easier to sync with Google Calendar and Contacts that with Outlook. And, since MyPhone is not out yet, people will probably try Google Sync.
I wonder how much of Google’s iPhone focused web-apps will work directly on Android based phones? In any case, Google Translate for iPhone looks great in my quick tests (with my limited knowledge of anything beyond English, and some would say, even there…). Just head over to…
…on your iPhone or iPod touch. It redirects you to google.com/m/translate. The first URL results in the desktop page if you try it on a Windows Mobile smartphone. The second, direct, URL just throws a WiMo smartphone to Google’s simplified mobile home page. Once again, Windows Mobile gets no web-love. Sigh. Glad I bought an iPod touch to see the cool stuff Windows Mobile users are missing out on.
You can read the announcement for this new iPhone web service on Google’s blog at…
I’m not a regular reader of the Google Docs Blog. So, this is a bit dated (from June 18).
One of the Google Docs team members bought an Eee PC, tried Google Docs on it, noted a few oddities, and now asks the public: What could we change in Docs to make the experience better on the smaller screen? Let us know by leaving a comment.
One sidenote: Google Docs and many AJAX-y sites don’t work well on the OLPC XO. My recollection is that the cursor disappears when typing in a Google Docs text window. I should fire up the XO and confirm that this is still the case.
Speaking of Google… They launched a new Google Groups area…
This web area is for general mobile technology discussion. But, of course, Google encourages discussion about their own mobile products like Maps and Gmail.