Google Cleans Up its iPhone Offerings

As the Macworld show is getting started this week in San Francisco, Google has announced a series of improvements to the integrated Google offerings for the iPhone. About a month ago, Google rounded up a series of applications as a suite fore the iPhone, including Gmail, Search, Calendar, Google Reader, and more. Most of the enhancements Google is announcing in conjunction with Macworld improve the user interface for these applications.

If you’re an iPhone user, go to Google.com to check out the enhancements. Several of the applications work better now with the touch-screen interface on the iPhone and they start faster. There are also some time-saving features that tie the various Google applications together. The most noticeable one is that you can now customize the applications that appear on the Google.com menu bar. You can choose to have the applications you use most frequently on your main menu bar, and sign in once to access, Calendar, Docs, Google Reader, GMail, or Picasa accounts.

Previously, when working with Gmail on the iPhone, you needed to regularly refresh your inbox to see new messages. If you happen to receive a lot of e-mails each day, that can get to be an annoyance. Now, new Gmail e-mails automatically appear without the need for a refresh. Also, when you type in a contact name, it’s filled out automatically after a few characters.

For users of iGoogle gadgets, one of the more significant new enhancements is that you can now access gadgets on the iPhone. Once you’ve customized your iGoogle home page with your favorite gadgets (which you can do on a computer rather than the iPhone), anytime you click on the iGoogle link on the home tab, your gadgets will show up.

Finally, there are some enhancements to the Calendar view that you get on the iPhone. The most significant one is that you can now view a month’s worth of appointments at once.

Do you use Google’s applications on the iPhone?

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