Apple is scooping up new talent left and right these days. After purchasing PA Semi to help them design their own microprocessors, Apple has bought the mapping outfit Placebase. Could this signal a further divide between Google and Apple?
Google provided the data and helped develop the Maps iPhone application from the very beginning. Now Jaron Waldman, founder and former CEO of Placebase, is a member of the Apple Geo Team.
Maybe the conflict between two giants was brewing in the background the whole time. The partnership between Apple and Google looks to be on edge ever since Google decided to get into the mobile phone business, launching the open source platform Android.
Apple, as we know from countless reports of application bans, rescinded approvals, and the rejection of Google Voice, keeps strict and inconsistent control of their iPhone OS. In fact, previous Google apps appearing in the App Store have had the privilege of using tools hidden from the average developer.
We've already reported in this forum about the patent awarded to Apple for a "Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics." Well it seems they've already flexed their muscle with Google during the development of Android.
iPhone owners using iGoogle as of late will find that the site has changed its look. In fact, the iGoogle address formerly devoted to the iPhone now redirects to a standard Google mobile website. Why did Google opt to remove what was arguably the superior interface, and replace it with a site that is more difficult to use and has less features?
Long ago, we stopped reporting on every new 'iPhone Killer' rumor that came down the pike. That said, we still enjoy passing on the more interesting of these rumors to you when something worthwhile comes along. The latest of these rumors involves Alienware, recently aquired by Dell, and Google's new Android platform.
According to UK mobile phone blog dial-a-phone, Android and Google are planning to announce a new smartphone, based on Android, at this years 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain (currently underway). There's no telling
The latest news regarding regarding wireless access to the internet suggests that iPhone owners may use these features on their phones between 30 and 50 times more than typical owners of other models. The numbers have apparently come as such a shock to their originators - sources such as Apple, Google, and German iPhone service provider Deutsche Telekom AG - that some have gone back and double-checked their figures.
As if the marriage between the iPhone and Google wasn't solid enough. today Google released new interface made specifically for the Apple iPhone. The new interface puts many of Google's services/applications literally right at your fingertips. Easily accessible through the new interface is Google Search, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, and more.
The new interface (seen in the screenshot above) provides easy access to all of these Google services through a very functional tab-driven interface. Easy switching between types of searches are handily available, as is switching between applications, and the new interface even includes "advanced" features usually
Though it will probably come as no surprise to iPhone owners or those who frequent sites like this, the search term "iphone" has topped off Google's list of fastest growing search terms for 2007. iPhone was joined on the list by other non-surprises such as "heroes", "tmz", and "facebook". Also making the list was something called a "webkinz", which this author is happily stupified by.
Last year's fastest growing Google search term was "bebo".
The Google list was announced by Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search and User Experience, yesterday morning on the Today Show. Traditionally, Google doesn't release their list until later in December, but this year they more closely followed Yahoo's release of their top 2007 searches (which incidentally was crowned by "Britney Spears").
Here is the full list of Google's fastest growing search terms for 2007:
The last year has seen a great deal of speculation about Google introducing a mobile phone onto the market. In the last few months, it has become fairly clear that Google would not in fact be releasing a mobile phone - but instead was creating an open source mobile phone operating system that would integrate fully with Google's existing services and offer developers the ability to create a wide array of applications for mobile phones.
Yesterday, Google released a new version of their popular RSS feed reader intended for use on the Apple iPhone. Google created the new version of the reader as an exercise in using the Google Web Toolkit to create feature-rich applications for the iPhone. The Google Web Toolkit, or GWT, is a development toolkit which allows users to avoid the many pitfalls and frustrations of Javascript browser compliance when authoring AJAX web applications by letting programmers author these applications in Java.
Technically, the new web application isn't Google Reader. It's a more bare bones RSS reader and as such is formally called the GWT Feed Reader. That said, at the end of the day, it's a feed aggregator and reader that Google offers. Its desktop counterpart is Google Reader.
Though it probably comes as little surprise, the iPhone-geared Google Reader's interface jives quite nicely with
