macnn/ipodnn
05/16/2008, 9:15am, EDT
Friday, May 16th
Google aims to have native iPhone apps at launch
Google intends to be early with the development of native iPhone 2.0 applications, according to the company's vice president of engineering. "We expect to have applications at Day One," says Vic Gundotra, in reference to June's expected launch of the App Store and the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Although Gundotra refuses to comment on the details of particular software, he notes that development of web applications will continue in parallel, because these can be continually updated and improved without requiring a new download. "It's the best of both worlds," commments Gundotra.
The company may be most likely to create native versions of key web applications, such as Calendar and Docs, in order to give access to these without having to transfer data over a comparatively slow cellular connection. This is the same purpose served by the only existing native iPhone application, Google Maps, which would otherwise have to fetch basic interface information in addition to map updates over a slow 2.5G EDGE receiver.
Filed under: iPod, iPhone, software
Other story tags: iPod touch, Google
, 
, 3
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
Top
subscribe to comments
for this article
Way to go Google!
It's seems over the last few years that developers have gotten complacent and their offerings lag significantly behind the OS offerings (be it OS X or Windows), and it's so refreshing to see a company plan ahead!
Maps local
I'd like to see maps be able to save a local copy of the map onto the iphone drive, so i can search a map/route to a place, and save the maps from my Mac then be able to recall the route without having to connect to any network (speed and if there is no cell signal in the boon-docks)
RSS reader
We need a real RSS reader with auto-upating. The current iPhone one sucks because it never updates with all the recent articles.