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iGoogle drops web app formatting for iPhone
updated 03:40 pm EST, Tue January 20, 2009
iGoogle iPhone format gone
Google has done away with the special iPhone formatting once available for its iGoogle frontpage, accounts say. Visitors to the site were previously able to view a version specially tailored for the iPhone's Safari browser, with sections that could be inflated or collapsed to display web gadgets. In place of this, testing reveals, iPhone owners are now being redirected to the generic mobile site for iGoogle.
No reason for the takedown has been given, but the formatting may be seen as largely redundant, due to the availability of a streamlined main interface and a variety of dedicated applications. These include the central Google Mobile App, which integrates features such as voice commands.
great!
01/20, 06:04pm reply
I wish more sites would do this. The whole point of the iPhone is to get the "real web," not some simplified version. That's fine for other smart phones, but irritating for iPhone users.
eddd
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Dec 2001
agreed
01/21, 02:25pm reply
amen to what eddd said. regular, non-special web pages for iPhone users. i hate "mobile" formatted pages, they stink. if you want to create a special iPhone page or web-app and provide a link to it that people can manually 'click' if they want to, great, but keep your main web site normal.
mytdave
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2000
Disagree
01/29, 04:03am reply
The 'streamlined formatting' and Google mobile app is nothing more than a thin list of Google bookmarks, directing users to Google's web-pages in Safari.
Also, Google calendar users still get their calendar neatly formatted for the iPhone on the iPhone browsers.
The uproar (on Google's support forum with >350 comments on the topic) was caused by Google's decision to replace the mobile iPhone (and G1) optimized version with an antique WAP-style mobile page for iGoogle.
With many others, I found the simplified iPhone optimized iGoogle to be the best RSS reading (web)app available.
As one commenter on the forum put it: Google gave iPhone users a free Ferrari, which they have now replaced with a push-cart for all drivers, because not every road can handle the Ferrari. That's their decision (it was free in the first place), but at least until they upgrade their push-cart, many will not drive the mobile iGoogle cart and look for another car.
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999