Google's Gone Mobile-crazy
07 Nov 2006I've been posting about how jazzed I am that Google's setup Google Reader so that you can easily use it on any old web-enabled phone. And it's pretty bad ass. I use it a good bit when I'm waiting in line or grabbing a quick bite to eat .... or on the pooper.
Gmail has always been mobile-friendly, but it used a stripped-down interface. Well, no more: meet the Gmail Mobile application. Now, just boot up the app and see your Gmail interface almost like you were looking at it in Firefox. Almost. It's pretty nifty, if a little slow.
Even more cool, is that pretty much all the nifty Google mobile stuff is integrated into the Google Homepage which also has a mobile version. You just point your phone there and you get your Google Homepage, including a snapshot of (and link to) your Gmail account, a quick view of your RSS feeds in Google Reader, plus headlines from any other RSS feed you might have dropped into your homepage, plus weather and some other fun stuff.
The only thing you don't get? Google Calendar. I'm not entirely sure why I can't just have a read-only agenda view that will show me what I've got coming up that day. That's the only thing missing from me having my life be available to me at all times. Which is both really fun and cool and very, very sad. Mostly sad.
Obviously there are tradeoffs. It's harder to sync to a PDA (but, I don't really use one anymore anyway ... my phone has replaced that). My life lives on Google's servers, so if they turn evil, I'll be hosed.
P.S. You can actually get your GCal agenda via SMS, but that's annoying.
P.P.S. This is really just because I haven't had time to record a new podcast and wanted to write about something.
P.P.P.S. I really wanted to write about PayPerPost, but I want to actually formulate my thoughts before I spew any venom.