14 DAY TRIAL // Everybody is getting the iPad craze and Google isn't immune. With the latest hyped gadget to come from Apple having been launched over the weekend, publishers, developers and everyone in between have been releasing iPad versions of their sites or apps. Google has taken a mixed approach to the iPad. Some apps have been adapted from the iPhone versions and web services are based on either the mobile or the desktop version depending on which one made more sense.
"Here at Google we’re really excited about the promise of tablet computers, which will be great for browsing the web and using apps. We’ve been working hard to optimize our services for the new format - larger touchscreens, increased portability, rich sensors - and we’d like to share some information about our progress so far," Punit Soni, product manager for Google Mobile, wrote.
The iPad comes with several Google apps and services pre-installed, just like the iPhone. The default search engine on the iPad is Google, despite all the rumors going around of Apple switching to Bing as the default provider. Two of the best apps for the iPhone, namely YouTube and Google Maps, have made it to the iPad as well, and are also integrated by default.
The iPad doesn't support the Adobe Flash Player plugin, so this means that plenty of sites that make use of it are out of luck. Apple is encouraging everyone to switch to HTML5, but, in the meantime, users would be missing out on plenty of sites, not the least of which would be YouTube. Luckily, Apple is choosing the same path it did for the iPhone and has released an official YouTube app that can stream all the videos you want in full-HD glory and you can even comment on them.
The Google Maps app has seen a couple of updates. All the regular features are there, of course, like the satellite and Street View imagery, but the new Google Maps app for the iPad also gets a new terrain view. Gmail also comes with a customized version for the iPad, based on the existing Gmail for mobile app. You can read more about Gmail for the iPad here.
Google is also working on bringing a customized Google Mobile app on the iPad. Currently, iPad users can download the regular app designed for the iPhone/iPod touch, but a version, modified to render well on the larger screen, is waiting for Apple's approval, as it has been submitted to the App Store. Apple and Google went head-to-head with the Google Voice app for the iPhone last year, but, hopefully, this won't be a repeat of that and the Google Mobile app should be landing in the App Store soon enough.
"As you use Google’s web-based applications on iPad, you’ll notice that you sometimes see the desktop user interface and other times you see the mobile interface. We’ve evaluated the behavior of each Google web app using the iPad Simulator, and we are serving the interface we feel works best," Soni added. All the new apps are designed for the iPad, but Google has other tablets in mind and you should expect to see some of these apps on other devices as they start hitting the market, including Google's own Chromium OS-based tablets, which aren't coming anytime soon, though.