Google revamps iPhone apps

 

Gallery

By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 6 Dec 2007 at 10:33

Google has unveiled a new portal for iPhone users, which gives them access to Google search, GMail, Calendar and Reader, all from one screen.

"I created a prototype and showed it to some fellow Googlers," says Google engineer Steve Kanefsky in a blog post.

"After that, things started moving pretty quickly. A few weeks later, I had an improved version which Googlers throughout the company were using on their iPhones."

Following some internal testing at Google, the company says it has now begun to redirect iPhone users to the page from the main Google site.

However, we were left with the standard Google interface when we tried this, and only many clicks later stumbled upon the actual application.

The application is easy to use, once you find it, and allows you to make searches, read email, and view RSS feeds all from one window, which means less clutter and less switching from one window to another.

The search company has been attempting to capture a larger share of the mobile market in recent months, releasing an open source mobile operating system called Android and optimising services like GMail for mobile devices.

Mobile phone news, reviews, themes and downloads at Know Your Mobile