Google Maps for iPad

Almost one year after Google Maps was removed from iOS and 7 months after Google released a Maps app for iPhone, you can finally install the Google Maps app on an iPad and actually use it. Installing the iPhone app on an iPad wasn't a good idea, so the web app was a good alternative.

It's interesting to notice that the new Maps UI was first included in the Google Maps for iPhone. After that, Google used it in Google Maps Engine Lite, then in the new desktop Google Maps, in the updated app for Android and now the circle is closed.

The updated Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad looks just like the Android app and has almost the same features: incident reporting, dynamic rerouting, integration with Zagat and Google Offers, Google+ recommendations, the "explore" feature that lets you find great places without searching for them, biking directions and navigation, offline maps (type OK maps in the search box).

To open the "explore" section, tap the search box and select "explore". Then you can tap "eat", "drink", "shop", "play" or "sleep" and find a lot of useful suggestions. Many of them are influenced by the reviews of the people from your Google+ circles.

The full-screen map provides an immersive experience.

There's support for incident reports, although it's not clear if the new feature has anything to do with the Waze acquisition.

Google Maps still supports layers, but not all the layers from the old Android app. There are layers for traffic, public transit, bicycling and satellite maps.

When you first launch the app, Google Maps shows the following screen. The option to improve Google Maps by sharing anonymous location data is enabled by default. This means that Google no longer has to rely on Android devices to get traffic data. A similar option was displayed last year, when Google Maps for iOS was launched, so it's not new.

A year ago, things were very different: Google Maps for Android was a lot more powerful than the built-in Maps app for iOS powered by Google Maps data. Now Google Maps apps for Android and iOS have almost the same features. Can you find some features that are only available in the Android app?

One Password. All of Google

Google Australia continues to promote Google Accounts and now shows a short message and some icons below the search box: "One password. All of Google. Sign in." Google shows the icons for Search, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Play and Google+.

It's a simplified version of Google's sign-in page. "Want to enjoy the best of Google? Just stay signed in. One username and password is all you need to unlock more features from services you use every day, like Gmail, Maps, Google+, and YouTube."

While it's nice to use so many services using a single username and password, it's also dangerous. Using a single account to store your email, your calendar, your contacts, your documents, photos, videos and music, your search history, your bookmarks, your financial information, your location history, your Google+ posts and blogs, the apps you've installed using Google Play and much more? It sounds pretty scary. 2-step verification solves the "one password" issue, but makes things more complicated. Maybe it's time to think beyond passwords.

{ Thanks, Michel. }

Redesigned Google Play Store Site

The redesigned Google Play Store for the web is finally available. The interface is now consistent with the mobile app, the site now uses AJAX, there's the modern Roboto font, transitions are smoother, thumbnails are bigger and there's less content to see at a glance. You have to scroll more, click more, so you'll have plenty of time to enjoy the new navigation arrows.

There are also bugs. For example, in the Romanian version of the Google Play Store, section titles include some strange exclamation marks that separate the words, instead of spaces. There are a lot of localization issues, including a Kommunikation section (that's a German word).

Google Play now looks like a mobile site resized for the desktop. Instead of taking advantage of the space that's available, the site shows less content and a lot of empty spaces.

Android Apps and Staged Rollouts

Google Hangouts was probably the first Android app update that was gradually rolled out. Then Google officially added support for staged rollouts and any Android developer could use it.

"If you like, you can release your app via a staged rollout, starting with a small percentage of your userbase and then increasing it. You can set and modify the percentage for the staged rollout on the APK section of your Google Play Developer Console, on the Production tab, while keeping an eye on crash reports and user reviews, to make sure users like new functionality in your app. While a staged rollout is in progress, you won't be able to update your production configuration. You must publish the staged rollout to 100% of users first."

You've probably noticed that Google used it for the latest Maps and Chrome updates. Google announces the updates, but you can't install them because they're gradually rolled out. Even if you go to the app's Google Play page, you can't manually update the app. You need to find the APK files and install them from various sites, while hoping that they're legit.

While staged rollouts are useful for developers, they're annoying for the people who want to try the latest features. Google uses a similar approach for web apps like Gmail or Google Docs and for Chrome updates, but there's a trick to manually install the latest Chrome update: go to the about page.

Here's a similar idea for Google Play: limit staged rollouts to automatic updates and allow users who want to get the latest updates to do that by visiting Google Play's app pages and manually installing the updates.

Why Google No Longer Needs Google Toolbar

Google Toolbar is the first software released by Google. The first version of the add-on was released back in 2000, when Google's most important services were the search engine, Google Directory and AdWords. Here's Google's homepage from December 2000.

At that time, Google suggested to "get the Google Toolbar for your IE browser and take the power of Google with you anywhere on the web." Internet Explorer was the dominant browser and it didn't have a search box, so Google Toolbar was a great way to promote Google. It also made it easier to search the web.

Since then, Google Toolbar added many new features: pop-up blocker, online bookmarks, custom buttons, inline find-in-page, automatic translation, spell checking, suggestions on navigation errors and more. Some of these features were integrated in Internet Explorer. Google made a lot of business deals and many popular applications bundled Google Toolbar. Google also developed a version of the Toolbar for Firefox, but it was discontinued in 2011.

For many years, Google Toolbar was the most important Google software. Internet Explorer was the only popular browser that didn't use Google as the default search engine. "Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, now accounts for less than 60% of the market, down from 95% at its peak in 2003," mentioned a BBC News article from 2010.

Internet Explorer's market share has decreased as Firefox and Google Chrome became more popular. Even though Microsoft started to update the software more often and Internet Explorer became faster and added support for many HTML5 features, the 5-year stagnation between IE6 (2001) and IE7 (2006), the 2-year gap between IE7 and IE8, IE9's lack of support for Windows XP, as well as the increased popularity of web apps like Gmail or Google Docs - all of these made Internet Explorer a distant memory for many users.

Google Chrome is now the most popular browser, according to Google. This means that Internet Explorer is no longer the dominant browser from the early 2000s. Google now focuses on promoting Chrome, which is a lot more important for Google: Chrome users are more likely to use Google's services and Google can improve the overall browsing experience, instead of only adding a few features.

Just like Google discontinued Chrome Frame, you can expect to see a similar announcement for Google Toolbar. Google Bookmarks will also disappear if Google Toolbar is discontinued, since Toolbar is the only product that uses it.

The last major Google Toolbar release was in 2011, so the Toolbar is probably in maintenance mode. If you visit the Toolbar site in Chrome, you'll see this message: "You're using Chrome, that's great. All of the features of Google Toolbar are already built into your browser." That's not quite true, but Google probably thinks that the missing features aren't very important or can be replaced by Chrome extensions.

Toolbars are no longer fashionable, they take up a lot of space and slow down browsers. Today's browsers have minimalist interface and use most of the space to display web pages. More reasons to discontinue Google Toolbar.

New Google Maps in Your Mobile Browser

The mobile web app for Google Maps now uses the new map styles from the updated Google Maps for desktop. The same map styles are also used by the latest version of Google Maps for Android.

While the mobile web app uses the new map styles, it still has the old interface, but that will probably change soon. There's also a strange "null" message below the map, which shows that there are still some bugs that need to be fixed.

If you've upgraded to Google Maps 7 for Android and you miss the My Maps feature, you can still find it in the mobile web app: click the arrow icon next to the search box, select "My Places" and then click "Maps".

Update the Google+ Notification Counter

Google updates the Google+ notification counter automatically, but there's a simple way to force a refresh: mouse over the bell icon. This works for Google+ and all Google services that show the notification icon in the navigation bar.

You can also click the bell icon to refresh the counter and see the latest notifications, but this should be obvious. Most likely, Google anticipates your actions and assumes that you are about to click the bell icon when you mouse over it and that's why it updates the counter.

Another tip: drag the bell icon to the address bar or right-click it and select "open link in new tab" to read the Google+ notifications in a new page.