Posts tagged with "google"

Steve Jobs, Google’s Vic Gundotra, And “Icon Ambulance” On A Sunday→

Steve Jobs, Google’s Vic Gundotra, And “Icon Ambulance” On A Sunday

Amidst all the speculation and conjectures surrounding Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple CEO last night, Google’s Vic Gundotra has shared a great little anecdote about the former CEO’s proverbial attention to detail and willingness to get even the smallest wrong piece of interface fixed in order to provide users with a great experience when using Apple devices.

Gundotra recalls an episode from 2008, when he got a phone call from Steve Jobs – Gundotra was head of mobile applications at Google at the time – but he didn’t pick up. Vic was attending religious services when “Caller ID unknown” called, so he chose to ignore the call. The call was from Steve Jobs, who left a message asking to be called back because it was urgent.

The problem Steve Jobs needed to get fixed was a wrong shade of yellow in Google’s webclip icon for the iPhone:

So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I’ve already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow” said Steve.

“I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”

Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject “Icon Ambulance”. The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon.

You can find Gundotra’s full post over at Google+ – Gundotra eventually became Google’s public face in the iOS/Android clash for the mobile space, but he says that episode taught him a lesson about how CEOs should always care about details. Even shades of yellow, on a Sunday. That’s symbolic of Jobs’ career as a CEO, and a message that will live on as Apple continues down its road with a different chief executive officer.

[2008 Macworld keynote image via Arnold Kim]

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Google’s Photovine App Now Open for All

Back in July we covered the release of Photovine for iPhone, an image sharing app developed by Google’s internal Slide team that, among other things, is also responsible for Disco, a group messaging app, and Pool Party. Powered by a slick design and attention to detail, the Photovine app that was released last month didn’t allow everyone to sign up and start sharing photos as the system was invite-only without an open sign-up. With an update pushed last night on the App Store, Photovine has revamped Facebook and Twitter integration from within the app and finally opened registrations without the need of a beta invite.

Unlike the popular photo sharing app and iPhone-based social network Instagram, Photovine doesn’t revolve around the simple concept of photos uploaded to a user stream and shared with followers. Rather, Photovine is based on “vines” – photos connected by a caption and contributed by you, your friends, and other people using Photovine. So, for example, say you’d like to share a photo about your newly acquired MacBook Air, you can start a vine called “My new MacBook” and your friends will be able to let the vine “grow” with new photos related to the caption, and the photo you originally posted. This is best explained by Photovine’s promo video, which we’ve embedded after the break.

Photos in a vine can obviously be liked and commented on, each user has its own dedicated page with a profile picture and followers/following/likes counts, and an Inbox tab in the bottom toolbar allows you to check on messages you’ve received from other users, or notifications such as new followers, comments, and likes. This is not too dissimilar from Instagram’s implementation of “activity”. Users can add new photos to an existing vine (or even “watch” a vine if they’re interested in it) or create a new one from scratch – Photovine comes with a beautiful custom camera interface that lets you snap your own photo, or pick one from the Camera roll. Indeed the whole app sports a gorgeous and clean design that makes it easy to jump through vines, user profiles, and comment on photos shared by others.

Photovine for iPhone is an interesting concept with a good-looking interface and additional social functionalities to forward photos to Twitter and Facebook, and find friends on those social networks as well. You can download Photovine for free on the App Store. Read more

Google Launches Catalogs App for iPad

In an effort to make shopping “more engaging, social and creative” and, at the same time, connected and interactive in the digital era, Google is launching Google Catalogs for iPad today, a brand new (and free) app to browse and interact with shopping catalogs from popular brand directly on the iPad’s screen. Said to be coming to Android tablets as well, Google Catalogs is now exclusive to the iPad and it offers access to hundreds of different catalogs slightly reworked to take advantage of the iPad with tags, photo albums and videos, as well as the possibility of zooming on product shots, and a button to see whether an item is available in a nearby shop.

Users can organize items they find interesting in Favorites, or create a “collage” with custom themes and resizable photographs to share with fellow Google Catalogs users. Google is touting this feature as a way to shop digitally using the iPad’s intuitive gesture-based system, and be creative.

For the launch of the Catalogs app, Google has partnered with the following brands:

  • Anthropologie
  • Bare Escentuals
  • Bergdorf Goodman
  • Crate and Barrel
  • L.L. Bean
  • Lands’ End
  • Macy’s
  • Neiman Marcus
  • Nordstrom
  • Pottery Barn
  • Saks Fifth Avenue
  • Sephora
  • Sundance
  • Tea Collection
  • Urban Outfitters
  • Williams-Sonoma

Google says more brands will be added soon, and merchants with a shopping catalog can contact the Google Catalogs team right away to apply for inclusion in the app. From the promo video embedded below, you can see how Google Catalogs seems to heavily rely on sliding animations, pop-ups and links placed directly on a product’s photo or description – rather than forcing users to navigate to a specific page like printed catalogs often do, the app enables them to have more information quickly available in a new window.

Google Catalogs for iPad is available for free on the App Store.

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FlashtoHTML5 Turns YouTube In To A Flash-Free Zone On Safari

No-one really likes when their Mac’s fan decides to emulate a jet engine after you’ve been watching YouTube for a while because Flash has been running. It is particularly frustrating when you know that YouTube has been rolling out an experimental HTML5 video player that could work perfectly in Safari. Thankfully a new Safari plug-in, FlashtoHTML5, forces Safari to use that HTML5 YouTube whenever available (which is most of the time).

The plug-in from Juris Vervuurt will automatically choose the maximum video resolution available, up to 4K, although this can be manually changed. There are three minor caveats with FlashtoHTML5: this plug-in only works for Safari,  not all YouTube videos yet support the HTML5 version and subtitles and captions do not work in the HTML5 version. You can download FlashtoHTML5 for free.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

Google+ for iOS: Now Available For iPad and iPod touch

Looking to use the official Google+ app on your iPad or iPod touch? There’s a Google+ update in the App Store waiting for your geeky fingers to download the app on your tablet or smart-mp3 player. While Google+ doesn’t have an iPad specific version (you’re looking forward to 2x mode), you can now use it on devices outside of the iPhone (or your Android smartphone).

Google is also giving you additional control for their huddle feature via the app, as well as aggregated circle add notifications, stability improvements, and bug fixes.

You can download the latest Google+ update here.

[via The Next Web]

Gmail: Now Pull to Refresh and Retina Display Ready

Use Gmail on your iPhone? There’s an update waiting for you when you log in, including sharper graphics that shine on the iPhone 4’s Retina display. The  new graphics were a highly requested feature by Gmail users, and now Google’s gone and made everything prettier so their web interface doesn’t look as fuzzy or pixelated on our high resolution phones. And hey - now it feels like it belongs!

Want to refresh your inbox or a conversation? Simply pull down to refresh. Gmail now lets you refresh your inbox naturally, and you keep the conversation going if you’re rapid replying to a friend’s or coworkers email.

Finally, there’s some new transitions you can check out. As you navigate across Gmail, sliding transitions help create flow while generally looking pretty — it’s that final polish that iOS users come to expect on all apps (native or web).

There you go kids. A better Gmail for iOS.

[via The Official Gmail Blog]

Google Testing Clean New Google Search Design For Tablets

Multiple users are today reporting that Google is trialing a new tablet-optimized Google Search page that merges the recent design changes from the desktop version with a more touch-friendly design for tablets. Digital Inspiration managed to take a few screenshots of the new design running on their iPad which we’ve included above and below the break.

The new look uses just a single column layout, keeping the old sidebar options minimized below the search box instead. The new orange, dark gray and blue color theme is also present in this new design, which certainly feels cleaner with large amounts of white space. The one final design change that is of note is that the rather famous ‘Goooooooooogle’ at the bottom of the page that links to following search pages is gone – instead all that exists is the numbers one to ten.

This new design is currently being tested, and as is normal with Google product changes, is being randomly presented to a certain percentage of users. It may yet be a few weeks or possibly even months before this rolls out to everyone. Jump the break for some more screenshots.

[Digital Inspiration via The Next Web]

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Apple to Bid on Hulu Online Television Service?

After being put up for sale by owners Walt Disney, News Corp, and NBC Universal, Apple may be considering to bid on the online television service according to ‘people familiar with the matter’. It’s your typical response to rumors small and large, but let’s look at what’s on the table. Apple has stockpiled storage in the past (presumably for storing and serving video), and today’s speculation also coincides with previous rumors that Apple is working on their own online streaming video service.

Hulu has already been in talks with AT&T, Yahoo, and Apple competitor Google. Apple has $76 billion in cash, a data center to spare, and a competitor I’m sure they’d love to prevent from acquiring Hulu’s properties. Hulu has 33,000 episodes available for Hulu Plus subscribers, mobile applications, and ties with gaming consoles and other devices in the consumer market.

Update: In an updated version of the story, Yahoo is purported to be willing to pay up to $2 billion for four/five years of content. Microsoft dropped out of the bidding for the deal.

[Bloomberg[1][2] via @emilychangtv]

Official Google+ App for iPhone Now Available

Google has just released the official Google+ app for iPhone on the App Store. The app is free and available here, and at the moment of writing this Google hasn’t updated its Mobile webpage to showcase the new app yet.

The Google+ iOS app provides a native interface to access much of the functionalities of the website, such as the Huddle group messaging feature – which was exclusive to Android devices prior to the app’s approval. The dashboard of the Google+ app presents a grid of icons to access the Stream, Huddle, Photos, your Profile and Circles, as well as a Notifications tab at the bottom that will open a vertical list of all your incoming notifications. Whilst much of the navigation seems to rely on web views optimized for the iPhone and fetched by the device, the animations when switching between sections are quite snappy and fast on iOS 4. Just like on the desktop, the Stream provides recent updates from the people you follow and your Circles, allowing you to check for new posts with the popular “pull to refresh gesture” and comment or +1 others’s posts. You can’t +1 from the home page – you have to open a single post and hit the + button in the upper right corner, while a text field at the bottom will let you leave a comment. You can also “mute” or “report” a post. The app is capable of sending push notifications for new comments, shares, and so forth. Read more