For the longest time, accessing Google services was atrocious on iOS devices, especially on the iPad. Many of their sites were optimized for the iPhone, but had the odd combination of both missing lots of functionality compared to their full versions, but also running slower than the generic "mobile" version. JavaScript still remains a performance challenge of smartphones. Also the whole scrolling panes we expect from touch devices don't work too well within the model of a "web page". Too often I've seen web site trying to take over touch scrolling in all directions, simply to mess up and even crash mobile Safari.
While we await for a Google Maps app, Google ended up updating the Google+, Drive, YouTube and Gmail apps in the past few weeks. They now all work on the iPad and run fast.
The YouTube app update is important since, instead of simply wrapping some generic H.264 video player, actually uses a generic video playback engine that supports their ads. That might sound bad, but actually that means that many videos blocked because they couldn't serve ads are now available.
The new interface of the Gmail app is good, though the main reason I like the new app is that it resolves longstanding bugs with the list of emails. At least on my Inbox, moving a message to the archive would make it stick to the inbox for a few seconds, glitching out selections in it. I essentially had to force a refresh at every single operation on an inbox of maybe only a dozen messages.
The Google Drive app is an excellent step in the right direction. For years editing a Google Docs document was limited to text in a very strange line-based interface. In the new app, there is some limited editing text documents, but far more free form than before. Also, for the first time spreadsheets can be edited. We're far from the level of editing provided by Apple's iWork apps, but overall Google Docs is now finally usable from an iPhone or iPad.
Published on December 4, 2012 at 21:30 EST
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