Category Archives: Google

Dec
19
2012
4
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Walt Mossberg and David Pogue: Google Maps is Best on iOS

Posted by at 5:00 pm

google maps

Google Maps launched to much applause, and the app was almost universally reviewed as offering more accurate data than iOS 6′s solution. While the design side of each app is more subject to one’s personal taste, Google’s data set is superior both in practice and from a technical point of view.

However, two notable journalists have recently decided that Google Maps is actually best viewed on an iOS device, and that the iOS client is superior to what is available on the web and on Android, Google’s mobile platform.

Walt Mossberg, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

However, the biggest news here is that the new iPhone version of Google Maps isn’t just better than Apple Maps. For now, at least, Google Maps is better in most respects on the iPhone than it is on Android phones. It has been redesigned with a cleaner, simpler user interface that makes it easier to use. Google officials say they took the sudden need to build a new iPhone version as an opportunity to rethink the popular app from the ground up.

David Pogue, writing for The New York Times:

Google admits that it’s even better than Google Maps for Android phones, which has accommodated its evolving feature set mainly by piling on menus.

In a straight comparison of features, the Android and iOS versions of Google Maps are comparable, with neither being able to assert a large lead on the other. Performance is also comparable, and depends more on network conditions than on the platform. However, the design of the iOS app is certainly different, and (it seems) simpler to use. Apparently, Google prefers the iOS client to that of the Android version likely because of its newer design and emphasis on search and gestures to navigate the UI.

Still, having used the latest clients for each platform, it’s difficult to pick a favorite. While the iOS version is certainly cleaner, some of the commands are more buried than on Android. The Android version seems to reveal more of the in-depth functionality, while the iOS version hides said functionality behind sliding panels.

Which version do you prefer? Is iOS’ Google Maps client really the superior choice, or do both have their upsides?

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Dec
19
2012
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Google Sells Motorola’s Home Division to ARRIS

Posted by at 3:54 pm

Motorola-Google

A year ago, Google purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Since then, Motorola’s phone division has continued to put out devices seemingly as if it had never been purchased. However, many wondered what would happen to Motorola Home – the division responsible for cable boxes and various other living-room centric products – after the buyout was complete.

Today, we have the answer. Both parties officially announced that Motorola Home would be making its way to ARRIS’ corporate umbrella, another cable-box provider and telephony provider, for $2.35 billion in cash and stock. According to the press release:

Under the terms of the agreement, upon closing of the transaction, Google will receive $2.05 billion in cash and approximately$300 million in newly issued ARRIS shares, subject to certain adjustments provided for in the agreement, representing an approximately 15.7% ownership interest in ARRIS post-closing.

Acquiring Motorola Home will enhance ARRIS’ ability to provide next-generation consumer video products and services, supporting a more comprehensive product offering while also accelerating its ability to deliver a comprehensive set of industry-leading new products for broadband to a wide spectrum of customers.  The transaction will increase ARRIS’ patent portfolio and provide a license to a wide array of Motorola Mobility patents.

Breaking through the PR-speak shows that this acquisition was more of a patent grab, which is something that Motorola has plenty of. Beyond that, Motorola’s position in the cable-box industry should help to bolster that of ARRIS.

[ARRIS]

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Dec
19
2012
11
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iOS 6 Adoption Spikes By 29 Percent Following Google Maps Release

Posted by at 1:55 pm

Apple released the iOS 6 software update for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in late September, but the absence of Google Maps as a native app was reason enough for a significant number of users to refrain from updating their devices to the latest version of the mobile operating system.

Following the release of Google Maps as a third-party app on the App Store, however, many of those users that were holding off on iOS 6 have since made the update. According to mobile ad server MoPub, the iOS 6 adoption rate has surged by 29 percent since Google Maps made its reappearance on iPhone.

That number is only based off the 12,000 apps that MoPub supports, but it proves that some people were willing to wait weeks for Google Maps to launch until finally updating to iOS 6. MoPub CEO Jim Payne, speaking with TechCrunch, supports that belief.

“We observed since the launch of Google Maps for iOS 6 a 30 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users, and we think it’s related to Google Maps. It verifies the hypothesis that people were actually holding back to upgrade until Google Maps was available.”

Did your update your device to iOS 6 following the release of Google Maps, or have you already been running the sixth major of the platform since it was made available a few months ago? Let us know in the comments.

[TechCrunch]

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Dec
18
2012
4
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Microsoft Fires Back at Google With Its Own ‘Winter Cleaning’

Posted by at 5:00 am

Last week, Google announced that it will stop Exchange Active Sync (EAS) support for non-business users in a suggestive post titled “Winter cleaning.” It’s a direct attack on Microsoft if nothing else, as EAS is the only method to have a relatively good Gmail experience on Windows Phone 8 devices. iOS, too, for that matter.

EAS is a communication protocol designed by Microsoft to sync not only emails but also contacts and calendars. Since its introduction way back in 2002, EAS has synchronously become the industry standard that can be found on virtually all devices that can connect to the internet.

Earlier today, Microsoft responded to Google’s decision in a post on its Outlook blog, claiming that they “were very surprised” by Google’s decision to remove Exchange Active Sync support in Gmail. Microsoft calls Google’s decision a “degrade” for users and suggest them to switch from Gmail to its newborn Outlook.com email service to get those features back.

Outlook.com was announced by Microsoft last summer to replace its decade old Hotmail service. Currently, Outlook.com already gained 25 millions users according to latest statistics. That number could balloon relative quickly as Microsoft’s 200+ millions Hotmail users had already begun to receive emails about upgrading services.

Microsoft’s new Outlook.com email service.

However the stumbling block for Microsoft is Windows Phone 8′s lack of proper Gmail support once Google finally shuts down its EAS support for regular Gmail users at the end of January next year. Other than EAS, Windows Phone 8 devices currently only support POP, which is an ancient communication technology and not preferable in this day and age of instant push communications.

iOS users will also be affected if they rely on EAS for all their emails, calendars, and contacts synching with Google’s services. Fortunately for iOS users, they can reconfigure their Gmail account to use alternative methods such as IMAPS, CardDAV, and CalDAV to sync emails, calendars, and contacts. More on this in a later post.

The big picture here is that there is a war going on right now between Microsoft and Google, and the users are the casualties.

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Dec
17
2012
11
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Google Maps For iOS Downloaded 10,000,000 Times

Posted by at 12:30 pm

Here’s an interesting number that indirectly burns Apple Maps: Google Maps for iOS has been downloaded over 10,000,000 times since its debut on the App Store last week, according to Google SVP of Commerce Jeff Huber. The third-party Google Maps app is much better than its predecessor native app on iOS 5 and earlier, and Google admits that it’s even better than the Android version it offers.

Google Maps for iOS features vector-based maps with voice turn-by-turn navigation, three-dimensional maps, transit information, shake to send feedback and more. The app has been critically acclaimed and is available as a free download on the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. Both an iPad version and offline mode are reportedly in the works.

[9to5Mac]

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Dec
17
2012
22
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The Ultimate Last-Minute Holiday Buyer’s Guide For Android Smartphones

Posted by at 6:15 am

If you’re doing some last minute shopping in the week ahead of Christmas, you’re not alone. Modern day society moves at such a quick pace, that sometimes holiday shopping doesn’t fit into the equation until the last possible minute.

Thankfully, iFans has prepared the Ultimate Last-Minute Holiday Buyer’s Guide for Android Smartphones to make shopping for that new device a little easier. Choose from Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note II, or perhaps you’ll favor Google’s low-priced Nexus 4 or the HTC One X.

The HTC One X is without doubt one of the best phones on the market.  The One X’s 4.7-inch screen has a hair better pixel density than the Samsung Galaxy S III at 312 PPI, but its screen has far better color accuracy.

The One X delivers a fast and fluid experience with its quad-core 1.5 Ghz processor and, if you like Nvidia, this phone sports Tegra 3 graphics for your app and gaming needs. You do sacrifice battery life to have some of these things, and the HTC One X is only available exclusively through AT&T. The smartphone does not have a MicroSD slot for expanding memory, but does come with more internal storage than the Galaxy S III for the base model.

Speaking of the Samsung Galaxy S III, this flagship handset is a chilling reminder that the iPhone isn’t the only mainstream smartphone on the market. The Galaxy S III boasts a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen, a joy to look at with a pixel density of 306 PPI.

This is a very capable smartphone that both looks and feels great in your hand. If you like the custom TouchWiz interface over stock Android, this is a great smartphone choice. Its processor will tear apart what you throw at it with its quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 packed inside, all while getting excellent battery life. You can even expand the memory storage with a MicroSD card.  (more…)

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Dec
15
2012
1
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Shake to Report: A Quick and Easy Way to Send Feedback

Posted by at 12:00 pm

Google Maps Feedback

Ways to interact with an app rise and fall. Some stick around, while others fade away, often replaced by newer and more refined paradigms. For example, pull to refresh. The concept was first demonstrated in Tweetie, the app which eventually was purchased by Twitter and turned in to the official Twitter client. Yet, pull to refresh exists in numerous other applications that rely on information to be pulled from an external source. Even Twitter’s competitors use the paradigm, and Apple even listed their implementation of pull to refresh as a major change point in iOS 6′s Mail.app.

Other design or interaction paradigms are harder to see, but they exist just the same. Instagram uses the center button as an action, instead of just pulling up another menu. Facebook, Sparrow, and dozens of other high-profile, important applications began to employ a design that revolved around a sliding panel in order to find more specific, less accessed items.

Shake to report looks to be a similar case. The paradigm seems to have originated from test builds of Facebook’s own iOS and Android application, where Facebook employees would simply shake their device in order to report either a bug or something that they considered to be an issue.

Google has since implemented the paradigm in their Google Maps app. Shaking the device brings up an option to report a problem with Google’s mapping data. Compared to Apple’s implementation of reporting an issue, Google’s is both simpler to activate and faster to use. Considering the use cases of navigation applications (in-car use), it seems more likely that Google’s will be used, since reporting an issue on Apple’s stock maps is more involved.

The only downside of this feature is that iOS already has an action associated with shaking a device, though many are unaware of it. In any application that involves inputting text, shaking the device is used to undo the last input or change.

Regardless, it is interesting to see something like this evolve in to a more refined process.

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Dec
13
2012
17
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Google Won’t Make Apps For Windows 8 or Windows Phone Because Nobody is Using Those Platforms

Posted by at 11:20 am

Ouch, this one has to hurt for Microsoft. Google Apps product manager director Clay Bavor, speaking with British tech blog V3, claims that Google has no interest in developing native Gmail or Google Drive apps for Windows Phone or Windows 8 due to a lack of interest in those platforms from users.

“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8,” he said.

As the tech landscape continues to shift to the mobile space, Bavor adds that Google will continue to work on improving its mobile experience, particularly on the Android and iOS platforms. Google is off to a great start in that respect, with its beautiful Google Maps app for iPhone on the App Store.

“In 2012 we’ve laid some of the ground work and really improved the experience of our core apps on mobile devices, such as adding native editing of spreadsheets for both iOS and Android apps,” Bavor said.

“We really see these as the first versions of our mobile experience, though, so we will continue to make big investments in mobile in 2013 with the goal of having beautiful mobile apps.”

As echoed by BGR, this situation means that perhaps the Windows platform is not a priority in terms of development anymore. Microsoft was several years late in offering a true smartphone experience with Windows Phone, while it again entered the game late with its Surface tablet.  (more…)

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Dec
12
2012
43
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Breaking: Google Maps Returns to iOS

Posted by at 8:14 pm

After months of speculation, Google Maps made its highly-anticipated return to iOS tonight as a free download on the App Store. Google Maps was a native application on iOS devices until Apple released its iOS 6 software update, which uses Apple’s new Maps app instead. The return of Google Maps to iOS is welcomed news for many iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users, as Apple’s new mapping solution has been highly criticized since its release in September.

Update #1 (11:48 PM Eastern): It is common to experience errors when attempting to download a brand new app from the App Store. Please allow time for Google Maps to propagate across Apple’s servers, while considering the high volume of downloads that the app is likely receiving at this time.

Google Maps iOS 2

Navigate your world with Google Maps, now available for iPhone. Get comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps with built-in Google local search, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, public transit directions, Street View and more. Use Google Maps to discover great places to eat, drink, shop and play, with ratings and reviews from people you trust. Sign in to save your favorite places and quickly access all your past searches and directions from your computer, right on your phone.

Google Maps has always been available on iOS devices through the mobile Safari browser, but the experience is not the same as a dedicated app. Now, users have the same native Google Maps experience as in iOS 5 and earlier, plus the addition of turn-by-turn navigation as a major new feature. But, while Apple did rush its Maps app to release, the Cupertino-based company does deserve some credit.

Per Google’s official blog:

The app shows more map on screen and turns mobile mapping into one intuitive experience. It’s a sharper looking, vector-based map that loads quickly and provides smooth tilting and rotating of 2D and 3D views. The search box at the top is a good place to start—perhaps by entering the name of a new and interesting restaurant. An expandable info sheet at the bottom shows the address, opening hours, ratings and reviews, images, directions and other information.

The reason why Apple switched away from Google Maps in the first place is because it would not allow the iPhone maker to integrate voice navigation into Google Maps for iOS devices. Google has been investing highly in its turn-by-turn directions for Android smartphones, and wasn’t going to allow Apple to offer that same feature on the iPhone. But interestingly, this new Google Maps app on the App Store features that coveted voice navigation feature.

There is no excuse for the less-than-desirable Apple Maps experience that the app provides at this time, however, so it is great to see Google Maps make it past the App Store approval process. Perhaps Apple’s decision to allow Google Maps on the App Store was made a long time ago, or perhaps it was in response to the negative criticism its own mapping app has received in the past few months. I’m sure the stranded travelers in Australia didn’t help the situation.

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Dec
12
2012
11
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The Tablet Shot the E-Reader

Posted by at 5:30 pm

iPad-Mini-Front1

The e-reader has had a hard year: shipments are projectedto fall 36% this year, with competition from cheaper, smaller tablets mounting. The trend of making a smaller tablet started with the BlackBerry PlayBook, which was a failure due to a confusing UI and a lack of apps. Various Android-based tablets in the smaller form-factor were then released, though none had a high enough build quality or the right software to become a popular tablet.

During all of this, Apple’s iPad was selling like gang busters and the idea of a 7″ tablet was widely scorned as being a failure. Also during this time, e-readers continued to experience growth as brands like the Nook and Kindle soared in popularity and sales.

Amazon then released the Kindle Fire, a $199, 7″ tablet which technically ran Android. The Kindle Fire was based on the PlayBook, and ran every Android app that was in Amazon’s app store. With Amazon’s extensive entertainment library and the thousands of available apps, the Kindle Fire was a popular device. However, it was criticized as being both underpowered and laggy, and not in the same category of devices as the iPad. Updated versions of the Kindle Fire were launched roughly two months ago.

New-Nexus-4-7-10

Google then released the Nexus 7, a much more full-featured tablet, for the same price at Google I/O this year. This tablet likely solidified the place of the 7″ tablet in the hearts’ of consumers, as the Nexus 7 struck the perfect balance between a small tablet and the features of a larger one. The Nexus 7 continues to sell well.

Apple’s iPad mini launched in November, and has also sold well. Many praise the mini as being the best sub-10″ tablet available, with its high-quality design and armada of powerful apps. However, the iPad mini is more expensive than other options.

With all of these great options, it’s easy to see why the e-reader is on track to see a hit in shipments. For about the same price, one can have a tablet which can browse the web, play games, and do dozens of other tasks that an e-reader simply can’t.

Still, some swear by the e-reader: the e-ink screen is useful for reading, as it eliminates the LCD which can cause eye strain in some people. However, these advantages don’t seem to be enough to stop the platform from experiencing a hit in sales, even after several big launches.

[Geekwire]

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