These are the developers filling Google’s iPad app gap

Geoffrey Goetz — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:40:46 +0000

Google hasn’t made nearly as many native apps for the iPad as it has for the iPhone, so you can probably count Google among those who think a web-based, cross-platform solution is just as good as an app when it comes to tablets.

The problem with many web sites and apps (which really are the same thing) is that they were initially designed for mouse-based navigation. While you can create touch-friendly web sites, data-driven native apps that access the cloud via Google’s published APIs are much more responsive and provide a better overall experience Here’s a list of some of the best native apps created by third-party developers that leverage Google services on the iPad.

Reeder. As far as RSS readers go, Silvio Rizzi’s Reeder for iPad is quite possibly the best on the iPad. The layout is brilliant, and the Mr. Miyagi “swipe-on, swipe-off” method of changing the read status of an item is perfect. Full integration with Google Reader, iOS and Mac apps, and a wide variety of sharing options make this a must-have.

GV Connect. Google Voice comes in handy on the iPad, especially for managing your contacts, listening to your voicemail, and sending text messages. With Andreas Amann’s GV Connect you can do all that and more. With another app called Talkatone, you can even place voice calls using your iPad.

GeeTaskPro. There are definitely more sophisticated task managers out there, but when it comes using Google’s to-do list, Memengo’s GeeTaskPro app has everything you need. With offline task management and support for task hierarchies, this app beats the mobile web version hands down.

QuickOffice. Working with Google Docs on the iPad via Safari is possible, but awkward. And if your network connection isn’t up to par, you can be in for a world of hurt. Document solutions like QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad offer offline editing of documents pulled from your Google Docs collection.

Web Albums. Web Albums is what MobileMe Gallery should be. With its ability to cache photos for offline viewing, Scott Sykora’s Web Albums for iPad accesses Google’s Picasa online photo service, and is a great way to share and view your photos.

All of the solutions above provide an interface tailored to the iPad, and also allow you to cache information locally for access when the device isn’t connected to the Internet. As the battle for users shifts from devices to the cloud, Google’s head start on Apple may erode as their browser-based strategy leaves many missing the native app experience. Thankfully, third-party developers like the ones mentioned here understand the true value that the iPad and Google’s services have to offer when combined.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How-To: Put Google Calendar and Tasks in Your Menu Bar

David Klein — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:00:32 +0000

Don’t you wish there were an easier way to quickly view upcoming appointments and your task list? If you’re a fan of Google products, then follow these steps for an easy-to-use solution. In the end you will have two new items in your menu bar: one for Google Calendar and one for Google Tasks.

What You Need

1. Fluid – This allows you to create applications from web sites. In our case we will be creating a Google Calendar application, and a Google Tasks application.

2. Calendar icon

3. Tasks icon

4. 10 minutes

The Steps

1. Download Fluid.

2. Open Fluid.app.

3. The first app we’ll create is for Google Calendar. Let’s use “Calendar” for the name.

4. The URL for Google Calendar is google.com/calendar/m.

Note: For Google Apps users it’s google.com/calendar/hosted/[your domain name]/m.

5. The dock or menu bar icon for this application can either be Google Calendar’s favicon, the tiny icon that appears in the address bar of your browser when you visit the site, or something a little fancier, like what I suggested above. To use the fancy icon select “Other” from the Icon menu, and locate the newly downloaded icon on your hard drive.

6. Click Create.

7. After a few seconds you’ll have the option to Launch. Go ahead. Don’t be afraid.

8. The window that appears is a web browser that will automatically open to Google Calendar. Log in (if necessary).

9. Go to the Calendar menu and hover over User Agent. Select “Mobile Safari 1.1.3 – iPhone”.

10. Go to the File menu and select Close Window.

11. Go to the File menu and select New Window.

12. Go to the Calendar menu and select “Convert to MenuExtra SSB…” Click OK in the warning window and you’ll have a new item in the menu bar: a tiny calendar icon. Click on it to see the mobile version of your Google Calendar. You can drag the lower-left corner to resize the window.

Repeat for Google Tasks

For Google Tasks, follow the same steps (you obviously don’t have to download Fluid again). The URL you will use is gmail.com/tasks.

Note: For Google Apps users it’s mail.google.com/tasks/a/[your domain name].

Tasks will not properly load until you perform step 9 and set the User Agent to “Other”. Enter the following text into the window:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20

You’re done! Now you can quickly and easily view upcoming appointments and manage your tasks list.