New updates to Google.com for the iPhone

Friday, July 18, 2008 | 5:54 PM

Unless you're living on a deserted island -- and maybe even if you are -- you know about Apple's 3G iPhone and App Store launch last week. Hopefully you know about the Google Mobile App that we launched last week, as well. And some of you may have noticed that we also released a new version of Google.com for the iPhone and iPod touch.

At Google, improving the speed of our applications and user experience is a top priority. The new Google.com for the iPhone browser now loads twice as fast as before -- and not just over 3G or Wi-Fi but also EDGE. We've optimized the page for fast searching, while still providing easy access to other Google applications including Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and many others under the More tab. We also improved the user interface so that there's more room on the page for search results. Take a look at the screen shot below to see how we've eliminated wasted space.

Also, when you click on a search result, the destination web site now opens in the same browser window that you conducted your search with. This means that you can instantly return to your search results or the Google home page by simply pressing the back button of your browser.

Finally, you can now access any of the application tabs directly by adding them to your iPhone Home Screen. We've created cool new icons for all the applications. Simply go to www.google.com in your browser, tap on any of the application tabs, click the "+" button, and select "Add to Home Screen." The icons will appear on your iPhone Home Screen allowing you to go directly to the application with a tap of your finger. Collect the whole set!

The new version of Google.com works on your 3G iPhone as well as the original iPhone and iPod touch. If you use Google Apps, you can also access this new version by going to www.google.com/m/a/your-domain.com, where "your-domain.com" is replaced with your actual domain name.

42 comments:

Jason said...

How about the new Opera Mobile 9.5? Can you optimize your pages for it also?

tmn said...

Why isn't the Norwegian google site updated? Still the old layout on Google.no

SJB said...

please oh please let us upload pics from the iphone to picasa web albums, or set up an email address we can email our pics to so they show up in picasa. Love you guys!

Anonymous said...

It's a shame this version doesn't come up when you search from the Google bar in iPhone Safari. After all, with Google built right into the browser I never actually search via the google.com page. I'm sure that could be easily fixed?

Mustapha said...

I'm not getting the new icons, what gives? I've been waiting for them for ages!

Great job btw , thanks!

JaapWillem said...

Cheers for creating a special iPhone/iTouch page, now get it done for symbian phones as well, which get the same browser.

And then u make my day

Cheers
Jaap willem

Tony said...

I'm only getting a few of the new icons (reader, calendar). I can't seem to get Photos, Docs, Notebook. What is the trick?

wil said...

@tony - Same here. Hopefully they'll all be available in the near future.

Admin said...

Please create an iPhone icon for the iGoogle site. The generic icon just doesn't mesh well with all of my other Web App icons.

Unknown said...

I don't get all the icons.

Graham said...

I don't get the new icons for Picasa, News and Docs. Also the 'Change Tabs' thing doesn't work.

Brandon said...

I can't get any icons under Apps for our domain. Will you be rolling out the icons for Google Apps services too?

Anonymous said...

Scuse me... the google.app for iphone is not available in, for example, sweden.. wtf? I do read & write english if that would be a problem.. release it worldwide would ya..

Farmer bill said...

Oh! oh! oh! oh so good to see google working with the iphone so closely. Love those updates.

My day would be better though if I could just do a simple text blog to my blogspot site using my iphone natively. Too much to ask? I don't thinks so, as Google can do anything. Or, if that is not your cup of tea, how about uploading to my Picasa site? Oh, oh, - that would be good too!

Maya said...

One more feature request: mymaps on mobile. Whole goole maps is good on a mobile, I have a need to look at my own created maps. It would save a lot of trees. I usually create a holiday/business travel map with the destinations conf center, hotel, specialty stores, restaurants and what not. That I now have to print print. I would absolutely love to have mobile maps include my maps. Not to mention different colored pins to put on my map.

Eric said...

Same here, the change tabs tool doesn't work and I can't get the cool icons.

Geet said...

Close all google browser windows.
Clear your safari cache and cookies to get the icons to show up.

LittleYoshi said...

I wonder if we'll be able to edit Google Docs on the iPhone at some point. That would be great!

Anonymous said...

This is all great, but when are we going to see native e-mail client and over the air Calendar and Contact sync? Then I can finally ditch this Blackberry!

Unknown said...

Yes - agree Betsy & Theo - this is a really great start, but for genuine functionality, we will all be looking forward to editing Google Docs, and full edit of Google Calendar on-the-go... I travel a lot, and these will put the icing on the cake...!

Burnt Monroe

iPlayTea said...

Great stuff... However I really don't want 4 Blue 'g' icons on my iPhone desktop so pleeease fix the icons problem.

Likewise I update the tabs but they don't change... I wonder if this is why the icons don't work also, because it's saving 'more' by default.

Jon

PitchforkJesus said...

What about the Samsung Instinct??? The iPhone isn't the only phone out there. Show us some love damnit!!! :)

Unknown said...

What Maya said. I'd love to be able to see my saved Google My Maps via the Maps application on the iPhone. I've just created a map of Newcastle's design scene ahead of a visit there, but browsing it via Safari on the phone doesn't work, and Maps won't recognise it.

viviengauthier said...

I've got the same problem as jonnykane.

Impossible to change my favorite tabs, so I can't get the new icons. :(

Otherwise, nice work as usual!

Joel said...

I second the request for an icon for iGoogle!

Love all the icons provided so far!

jjwagner said...

Anyone figure out how to get the additional icons yet? Clearing my browser cache/cookies didn't help and as others have already said, tab changes wont save.

cyberbolt said...

Icons & tab changes aren't working for me either.

I wish this would get fixed, because those other icons look mighty good!

Soloren2001 said...

As a Google Premium user I'm again disappointed as I can't get these nice icons...
Also the remember me doesn't work well. I wish I did not have to login/password from my cellphone... such a pain!

Unknown said...

what maya & alistiar said—having my google maps available would be great, and/or the ability to view all bookmarked dropped pins on one map in relation to your location, instead of having to view them individually . . . is there a way to view them that way that i'm somehow missing?

I thought for sure that would be the purpose of dropping custom pins in the first place especially while traveling . . . if not now, hopefully really soon! :)

kevin said...

great icons! Now what about a cool webapp icon for iGoogle? Please :)

Dave said...

Here's what I did to get the correct icons.

1 - Go to www.google.com in Safari
2 - Click the 'Change Tabs' button
3 - Select up to 3 icons (choose the ones you want to add to your home page). Click save.
4 - Click on the tab at the top and then click +, you should now get the correct icon for 'Add to home screen'.

Cheers!

You can't just click the more tab and then add to home page or you'll get the default icon.

Dave said...

Update: It appears that these home page short cuts only work for the tabs you have selected on the google.com page. So, if you have a 'news' shortcut added to your home page, but then go back to google.com and remove the 'news' tab, when you click on the 'news' link you won't get the news (I seemed to get whatever I had as my first tab, gmail in this case). When I put the 'news' tab back, the link worked correctly.

jwfrancis said...

You can't seem to 'collect them all' as someone earlier said the icons only work for the currently selected tabs - are you storing a tab offset instead of an app-name?

Marco Dileo said...

yes...unfortunately these are just short cuts for tabs you have on google.com :-(

And i can't neither select Picasa and Gtalk to add on my google.com tabs.

Unknown said...

Document Editing on the iPhone (or any mobile device) would be.... Amazing.. making Google VERY MOBILE... and one of my biggest hopes when i first considered buying an iPhone. just adding my 2cents :-)

Andy Chang said...

Others are right that the icons only work if they are in the tabs. However, I added the Reader icon to my home screen, then I went and put Docs in the tab, added THAT to the home screen as an icon too. The Reader icon stays an icon. So this is a slow work-around, but conceivably you can just keep changing out the tabs, and adding each to your home screen till you get the whole collection. Hope that helps

Unknown said...

The New Mobile Mapping and access to Mass Transit is Great. The site says now also access GPS from the phone via Blue Tooth. Ok. The Palm Version does not have this yet. The Centro has the funky cell tower location information. I would much rather have a GPS location and be able to have you direct me turn by turn or better yet supply maps in geographically challenged areas as long as there is cell coverage and I can see a map and the GPS has power why not? This should even work in Mapping Challenged places like China or Vietnam or Cambodia, or Campuchia if your prefer.

Bottom line, lets not elimate Large Segements like nearly 100 Million Palm Users with a Newly released Centro Version that ONLY supports the Centro. THere are the 100 Million Treo's that are still in circulation that are perfectly good treo's and DO NOT need to be replaced and can continue to update their Google Maps ota or bluetooth or sync.

Regards,

Cary

Todd said...

I love Google on the iPhone! But please, a mobile My Maps would be awesome. I've used My Maps many times to create maps when traveling or for out-of-town guests and a mobile version would be ideal.
Thanks!

sorrydaijin said...

Is there anything in the works to enable Japanese emoticons ("emoji") like for other mobile versions of gmail in Japan? (The version I use on my au phone is excellent)
As the iphone's mail lacks native support for these emoji, I guarantee every person with an iphone in Japan will switch to gmail if you get this working.

Anonymous said...

I access our Google Apps Calendar from my iPhone via this URL: www.google.com/m/a/obotc.net (our domain name is obotc.net).

The Day View works fine. But the month view shows only the month calendar. It does not display the selected day's details underneath. In its place, there is a perpetual "in process" icon - that infamous little dotted circle.

Has anyone else noted this problem?

kegelman said...

Mobile "My Maps" please!

adszhu said...

In Hungary, www.google.com immediately gets redirected to google.hu, where the mentioned new design still does not exist...