Gmail for iOS received an update that includes the ability to open links in Gmail directly to YouTube, Google Maps, and Chrome, assuming the apps are installed.
The feature can be turned off if you prefer.
What’s New in Version 2.2.7182
– YouTube, Google Maps and Chrome links go directly to the app instead of the mobile web, if installed. You can turn this off using the in-app settings.
– Added support for signing out of a single account instead of having to sign out of all accounts at once.
In a conversation with a Google employee who is working on the Glass project, Frederic Lardinois was informed that they are adding more-complete iPhone compatibility to Glass “very soon”:
Glass, the Google employee told me, will soon be able to handle these features independent of the device the user has paired it to (and maybe even independent of the Glass companion app).
While Glass will happily work with any iPhone over Bluetooth or use any Wi-Fi connection to get online, iPhone users are currently unable to get turn-by-turn directions through Glass – one of its killer features. Those direction are pretty useful while you are navigating a new city and they do show off the power of location-based apps on Glass, but the software will currently balk if you ask it to give you directions while it’s connected to an iPhone.
For Android phone users, Glass owners have to run a companion app on their connected phone to enable all of Glass’ functionality. However, it is unclear how complete feature parity is going to be achieved on the more-restricted iOS.
Google Keep, the Evernote-like content storing app for Android, is now available for the desktop as well as a Chrome web app, keeping with its web app initiative.
Google typically releases its services for iOS as well, so this could be a sign that we can expect its arrival soon.
Get just the right information at just the right time with Google Now.
• weather and traffic conditions before you start your day
• updates on your favorite sports teams and breaking news stories as they happen
Find out more about all other ways Google Now can help at http://www.google.com/now
Google is also working to bring some voice functionality to its desktop website. While Google Now has a voice component that has been compared to Apple’s Siri on many occasions, the essence of the feature is truly to provide timely, location based information.
Previously only available to Chromebook users, Google announced today on its Chrome blog that Mac and Windows users will now have the ability to open Microsoft Office files directly within Chrome. The functionality works for users running the latest Chrome Beta and requires installation of the Chrome Office Viewer (Beta) extension.
In addition to saving you time, the Chrome Office Viewer also protects you from malware delivered via Office files. Just like with web pages and PDFs, we’ve added a specialized sandbox to impede attackers who use compromised Office files to try to steal private information or monitor your activities.
We went hands on with the Leap Motion controller a couple times already and we were quite looking forward to the potential for gesture controlled apps that it offers devs. Back in February the company announced that it would be ready to ship the device by May 19 with pre-orders available through BestBuy, but today Leap Motion announced its gesture controller would be pushed back over two months until July 22nd.
Leap said the decision behind the delay is to allow more time for testing (via TNW):
“There’s nothing catastrophically wrong,” Buckwald added, “we’re very proud of the product…if we’d tried very hard we would have been able to ship the product [at the original time] but we wouldn’t have had the time to do the iteration and testing that we would want to do otherwise.”
CEO Michael Buckwald will apparently be sending out the following letter to preorder customers later today and answering questions in a Google Hangout tomorrow:
I wanted to reach out to update you on the status of our ship date. After a lot of consideration, we’ve decided to push back the date and will now be shipping units to pre-order customers on July 22nd.
This is not a decision we take lightly. There are hundreds of thousands of people in over 150 countries who have pre-ordered Leap devices, some as long as a year ago. These people are part of our community and there is nothing more important to us than getting them devices as quickly as possible.
We’ve made a lot of progress. When we first started taking orders back in May we were twelve (very tired) people in a basement. Now we are eighty (although still tired and possibly still in a basement). We’ve manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand Leaps to amazing developers who are building applications that let people do things that just wouldn’t have been possible before. These developers have given us great feedback that we’ve used to make huge improvements to the stability and polish of the product. We’re really proud of Leap as both a company and a product.
The reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date. But it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing. This will come in the form of a beta test that will start in June. We will give the 12k developers who currently have Leap devices access to the feature complete product including OS interaction (today developers only have access to the SDK). We will also invite some people who are not developers to join the beta test.
Ultimately, the only way we felt 100% confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction, was to push the date so we would have more time for a larger, more diverse beta test.
I really appreciate your patience. I know it’s been a long wait. Everyone that works at Leap is working tirelessly to make sure that wait is worth it. Thanks so much for your help and support.
Google launched its Google Fiber TV for iPad app today allowing Google Fiber customers to transform their iPads into QWERTY keyboard, TV guide yielding TV remotes.
For the past month, our Fiber TV customers have been able to control their TVs with any recent Android device. Using the Fiber TV app from the Google Play Store, they can search for programming, browse listings, and select shows or recordings with just the touch or swipe of a finger. Now, iPad users can enjoy this simple, intuitive experience, too.
Today, Google has released a new iPhone and iPod touch application for its Places for Business platform. Places for Business is a Google service that allows business owners to manage the presence of their business across Google services such as Search, Maps, and Google+. Now, with the new app, these tasks can be handled on the go.
Business owners can use the app to:
– Verify your business listing directly from your phone
– Update your business information: hours, address, contact information, and description
– Post beautiful pictures of your business on your local Google+ page
– Track web traffic going to your listing
– Manage multiple business locations from one app
Having the ability to manage Places for Business from an iPhone or iPod touch is a compelling experience because information can be updated at a quicker pace. Additionally, the camera inside of iOS devices allows for quick uploading of photos of businesses. The app is free on the App Store.
Google’s new Babel messaging platform is not only taking on a Hipchat-like Group messaging featureset, it also appears it will hit the iOS App Store at launch (which is looking like sooner rather than later for all of the code leaks). More at 9to5Google
Strategy analyst Benedict Evans (via Daring Fireball) has done some admittedly rough-and-ready number-crunching on Nexus sales based on Google development data to come up with a figure of just 680,000 Nexus 10 tablets in use.
Given that Apple sold 36.9m iPads sold in the second half of 2012 alone, we’re guessing they’re not too concerned about the competition. Even the Microsoft Surface tablet is believed to have beaten the Nexus 10 numbers, with a rumored 1.5m sales.
Google has rolled out two new features to mobile search that allow users to find results faster.
Users will notice expandable sitelinks that present popular links from certain websites directly from the search page rather than having to look for those important links from the website’s page.
Expandale sitelinks
Quick links will also begin appearing next to certain results, which offers users a faster way to preview a site before leaving the search page, much like how Google Images handles photo previews.
Quick view
Google says quick links will initially be limited to pages from Wikipedia, although the company expects to expand the feature to include more sites in the future.
Good news! Mailbox is now available without having to wait in line. After 10 weeks of around-the-clock hard work, our engineering team has scaled the Mailbox service to deliver over 100 million messages per day (and growing). We believe we can now confidently handle new users as they sign up, so we’ve pulled down the reservation system.
Additionally, the interface has been updated for quicker access to subscriptions via the My Subscriptions feed. TV queuing, another notable addition, will allow users to create a queue of videos to watch later on their TV.
Businessweek covers a talk given by Apple (and former Google) board member Bill Campbell who “held court” on Friday at the Mountain View headquarters of Intuit, where he serves as chairman. Notably, he discussed former Apple execs Tony Fadell who now runs Nest and Ron Johnson who just got fired from JCPenney. Of Nest, he pre-announced new products, saying
“You would think that people would yawn at something as boring as a thermostat,” Campbell said. “So, I’ve been surprised at how it has done and is doing. It will be the first of many products that come out of that company, which has a brilliant CEO and engineering team.”
Of Ron Johnson‘s exit at JCP, he said, “You have to keep your current business going while you experiment with a new one. He didn’t do that. He just put a bullet hole in his current business.”
GOOD ADVICE.
But perhaps most interesting for those yearning for an iWatch, Campbell told the business software company Expand Expanding Close
In an ongoing case in which Apple and Google’s Motorola have accused each other of infringing various mobile related patents since 2010, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola said in an order yesterday that the two companies have no interest in reaching a settlement. Bloomberg reports Scola said in his order that both companies are using the litigation as a “business strategy that appears to have no end”:
“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end,” U.S. District Judge Robert Scola in Miami said in an order dated yesterday. “That is not a proper use of this court.”
“Without a hint of irony, the parties now ask the court to mop up a mess they made by holding a hearing to reduce the size and complexity of the case,” he wrote. “The court declines this invitation.”
The result is Apple and Google will now have a four month period to narrow their claims related to the case that now includes over 180 claims for 12 patents. Bloomberg notes that Scola said the case currently includes “disputes over the meaning of more than 100 terms,” and that the case would be put on hold until the disputes are resolved if the two companies are unable to come up with a solution before the four month timeframe expires.
Back in November there were reports that Apple and Google’s Motorola were considering a settlement and even submitted “proposals on using binding arbitration to reach a licensing agreement” for standard essential patents to courts in Wisconsin. At the time Apple said “such an agreement could lead to a global settlement of all of their patent disputes,” but the two companies couldn’t come to an agreement on the arbitration process.
Samsung’s new eye-tracking features on its Samsung Galaxy S IV are arguably some of its coolest yet.
One of them, Smart Pause, is built right into the video player on the device and recognizes when you are watching a video. If you look away from the screen while it is playing, the GS4 automatically pauses the video for you and starts playing it again when you look back.
Many are wondering when or if a similar feature will launch on iOS. While Apple may never implement such a feature, iOS users can try out the feature.
LookAway Player for iOS is a YouTube player that includes the same look-away-pause, look-back-play features found on the Galaxy S IV. LookAway uses a technology developed by Cube26, which utilizes the front-facing camera to track eye movement.
While it is not yet clear how well the player actually works, it is available to try out yourself on the App Store.
Apple and Yahoo are in active discussions regarding increasing their partnership, according to The Wall Street Journal. While the report does not provide any true specifics regarding what an increased partnership could entail, the report notes that discussions have surrounded increased Yahoo integration into Siri. Additionally, Yahoo is reportedly exploring ways to reduce Apple’s reliance on Google for web search functions.
Data from Yahoo Finance and its weather site already come preloaded onto iPhones and Yahoo data like sports stats help power Apple’s voice-activated “assistant” Siri. But the companies continue to discuss new arrangements, including possible deals to get more content from Yahoo Sports and Yahoo News, among other Yahoo Web properties, preloaded onto Apple devices or available through an expanded partnership with Siri, one of these people said.
Apple and Yahoo have had a lengthy history in terms of iPhone/iOS-related partnerships. Yahoo was the first third-party email service to be integrated into the iPhone Mail app with free push email technology. In fact, one of Yahoo’s founders joined Apple co-founder Steve on stage at the Macworld 2007 iPhone announcement to discuss the partnership (video). Yahoo is also a Safari web search option and a data source for weather, stocks, sports data for iOS applications and Siri…
Google updated its iOS browser today with a number of fixes and feature improvements. Notable changes include the ability to save webpages as PDFs in your Google Drive account or print web pages to either Google Cloud Print or AirPrint printers.
iPhone and iPod touch users can now go full screen in Chrome giving you access to more of the web page. Perhaps most interesting is a new scroll feature that lets you scroll the toolbar off the page and then scroll back to get the Omnibar again.
Also Google says it has done some stability / security improvements and bug fixes. Expand Expanding Close
In a recent “Life at Google” video (above), Interaction Designer on Google’s search team Noah Levin walks us through his work building the latest version of the Google Search app on iOS:
After just three months at Google, Interaction Designer Noah Levin helped change the way our users interact with Google Search on the iPhone and iPad. Learn how he takes a complex system and makes it a simple user experience for our most well-known product: Search.
New data from tech analysts Canalys (via TechCrunch) shows Google leading downloads, with Google Play accounting for 51 percent of the market against Apple’s 40 percent, but Apple well ahead in monetisation, taking 74 percent against “close to 20 percent” for Google. Expand Expanding Close
After releasing a free version of the Quickoffice iPad app for its Google Apps for Business customers in December, Google today announced free iPhone and Android versions of the app exclusively for its Apps for Business customers.
Google Apps for Business can already edit Microsoft Office files using Quickoffice on an iPad, and starting today they can do the same on iPhone and Androiddevices. From Word to Excel to Powerpoint, you can make quick edits at the airport or from the back of a taxi and save and share everything in Google Drive… iPad and iPhone users can open and edit Office files directly from the Drive app. Just open Drive and select the file, make edits using Quickoffice and save it back to Drive.
Google noted the updated apps also bring new features including support for multiple Google Drive accounts, improved chart rendering, ZIP folders from multiple files, and the ability to sort Drive files by “Shared with me, Starred, and Recent”: Expand Expanding Close
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