Google - page 52

Google shook up the mobile business landscape by announcing its acquisition of mobile office powerhouse Quickoffice. That move might not seem terribly large, but it creates a very different and unexpected dynamic in the business mobility world. It also sets up a showdown over business capabilities that could have lasting ramifications.

Why is this move significant? It means that every company that produces a major mobile platform now also owns a serious office and productivity solution. Microsoft has Office, Apple has iWork, RIM has Documents To Go (which it acquired nearly two years ago), and Google now has Quickoffice as well as Google Docs. Each company can now ensure that its mobile business customers will have at least one solid option for working with Office files on their smartphones or tablets.

Street View is fantastic. You can check out a hotel’s façade before you even book a room, you can walk down a street where you remember there was this awesome store, only you can’t remember its name, or you can wander through far-off cities.

Now, you can make your own Street Views, with this camera and software kit from DIY Streetview.

Apple offers a number of search engines for iOS users, including Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing. According to a new report today, Apple will be adding Baidu search engine support for iPhone owners in China as early as next week. The feature will likely be announced alongside other iOS 6 announcements at WWDC.

Baidu is basically the Google of China, owning 80% of the market there while Google only owns 17%. It’s not surprising that Apple would want to support the largest search engine in the iPhone and iPad’s fastest growing market. Not to mention that this is another move that pushes a certain company farther away from iOS.

At today’s Google Maps event, Google revealed a few planned features for not only Google Maps for Android (no mention of iOS), but also Google Earth for Android and iOS. The Google Maps announcement was simply offline support, and something that users have been after for years. In Google Earth news, Google announced stunning new 3D images and a new UI would be coming soon to both Android and iOS platforms.

Google has announced its acquisition of leading mobile office solution Quickoffice. Quickoffice has proved to be one of the most powerful mobile office suites available and has shared success across multiple mobile platforms including Android and iOS. It’s tough to tell what Google has planned for the office suite but we’re sure it involves Google Docs, Google Drive, and a host of other productivity apps.

There’s no telling what the future will hold for the Quickoffice suite currently on iOS, as well as platforms other than Android — but one has to wonder: will Google simply kill them off or keep them after they integrate its features into their own apps? Details are bit scarce at this point but we’ll keep you updated.

Looks like Google is on another acquisition kick, as they’ve been scooping up companies left and right over the past month. We certainly welcome this latest addition and look forward to the Quickoffice integration.

Source: Google Blog

Following numerous claims that Apple will abandon Google Maps and release proprietary mapping technology this year, The Wall Street Journal today reports that Apple is indeed throwing out Google Maps once and for all. Apple showed signs of moving away from Google Maps when it used open-source mapping technology in its recently launched iPhoto for iOS app.

Apple has been reportedly “hatching the plan to evict Google Maps from the iPhone for years,” and the company is expected to debut its completely new app “later this year.”

Google sent out invites to certain publications this morning for a mysterious Maps event that will be taking place on Wednesday, June 6th. With the plea to come see the “next dimension of Google Maps,” the company plans to show a “sneak peek” at upcoming features for its mapping technology.

Sure, the event sounds interesting, but the fact that Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place 5 days later really adds fuel to the fire.

Microsoft is a company known for creating strict, labyrinthine, costly terms in its commercial and end-user licensing. With Windows 8 seen as a make-or-break product for Microsoft, the company has already been adding licensing terms intended to strengthen its hand in the mobile market. As we reported earlier this year, Microsoft’s enterprise licensing for Windows 8 has provisions to coerce businesses into buying ARM-based Windows RT tablets while punishing those that deploy iPads with more costly terms.

Ratcheting things up a notch, Microsoft’s general counsel Tim Fielden announced new details about the company’s end-user license agreements. Although not mentioning specific products or services, Fielden posted on a Microsoft blog that many new agreements will prohibit users from initiating a class action lawsuit against the company.

One of the hallmarks of Google Docs (and now Google Drive) is that you can use it anywhere. Within reason, any device with a modern web browser can deliver some level of viewing, editing, and collaboration. On iOS devices, however, native Office-style apps like Quickoffice tend to deliver a somewhat better user experience and are capable of opening, editing, and syncing documents with your Google.

There’s a clear value for such capability on an iOS device in that most apps deliver a better experience than Google Docs running in mobile Safari. Is there a similar need on the desktop? Would a native app a better solution than using Chrome or Safari on your Mac? According to Mac/iOS developer Tricky Duck, the answer is yes.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a new web browser from Yahoo! called Axis, which hopes to redefine web searching on desktops and iOS devices. We’ve also got a terrific app for web editors, one that’ll help you monitor which apps are accessing your personal data, and two new apps from Facebook.

BackUp Gmail does what you’d expect: it backs up your Gmail account to your desktop computer. It’s a simple Menu Bar app that works in the background. It’s only $2 in the Mac App Store, but does have a few problems.

The Rockstar Consortium made headlines when the group won a bidding war for the patent portfolio of one-time communications giant Nortel. Aside from getting a green light for the purchase from the Department of Justice, Rockstar hasn’t really made headlines since it won the patents.

Rockstar may be keeping a low profile right now, but the company is well armed and will play a massive role in the mobile technology patent battles echoing around the world. In fact, the company may very well have been a secret weapon in Steve Jobs’ plan to “go thermonuclear” in Apple’s battle against Android.

Google’s latest Stable release of Chrome now includes the ability to sync tabs across multiple devices. As long as you are signed into Chrome, you’ll now have the ability to take your tabs with you when switching between work, home, mobile (with Chrome for Android beta), etc. Accessing them is quick and easy thanks to the new “Other devices” menu located on the New Tab page, and even the back and forward buttons will work, allowing you to pick up browsing right where you left off.

Google Chrome is quite possibly the best web browser you can install on your Mac or PC, and it could soon be the best browser on your iOS device, too. According to one analyst, Google is “definitely” bringing Chrome to the App Store this year — possibly before the end of this quarter — which is bad news for Apple.

Apple made it into the top 20 companies on the Fortune 500, nabbing 17th place – an impressive feat for a company that ranked at number 71 just three years ago. When it comes to ensuring a happy workforce, however, Apple didn’t measure up to Fortune’s standards.

Fortune’s list of the 20 best employers drawn from its list the 500 top companies was published over the weekend. Apple didn’t make the list, though some of its competitors did. One of them actually topped the list – Google.

Instacast, undoubtedly the best podcast manager for iOS, got a great update this week that deserves a place in our must-have apps roundup. We’ve also got an impressive voice translation tool that you just have to try, a social weather app that’s more reliable than the weatherman, plus major updates for Pocket and Google+.

The general reaction to Google’s release of its new Google+ app has been very positive. Lots of people have been saying how good it looks and how nice it is to use.

Yes, it is pretty. Pretty enough to give Google+ the usage boost it seeks? Now that’s a very different question.

Yes, it’s true — well, at least the part about iOS getting a beautiful Google+ app update before Android. The only logical explanation I could come up with for this travesty is that Vic lost a bet during a friendly game of golf with Tim. At least that’s the story I’m telling myself as I weep in a dark corner.

Kidding aside, the new Google+ app looks beautiful, and although iOS users get to use it now, it will be coming to Android soon enough — and is supposed to include a few extra surprises for us Android folks (that won’t win me back Vic! — Okay, maybe it will).

When Apple first released iPhoto for iOS, it quickly became clear that the new app was Apple’s first app to distance itself from Google’s Maps API in favor of OpenStreetMap (OSM), a collaborative online project aimed at making a free and complete map of the world. When you checked in iPhoto where a photo had been taken, you were seeing maps built upon the foundation of OSM. The only problem? Apple wasn’t bothering to credit them.

Now with the latest update to iPhoto, Cupertino’s decided to do the right thing. OpenStreetMap is credited in the app’s acknowledgement section.

The Flashback malware which was found to be infecting over 650,000 Macs at its peak was earning its creators up to $10,000 a day, according to security specialists Symantec. The OSX.Flashback.K trojan, which is believed to be the largest Mac infection to date, is designed to steal page views and advertising revenue from Google.

Microsoft has teamed up with Barnes & Noble with a $300 million investment that will create a new subsidiary focused on accelerating “the transition to e-reading.” Microsoft will take a 17.6% equity stake in a subsidiary, which is yet to be named, while Barnes & Noble will own the remaining 82.4%.

The move will provide Microsoft with its own answer to iBooks, with plans for a NOOK application that will run on Windows 8, and it’ll give users an alternative to the Kindle Store.

Google is well known for their awesome Easter Eggs and today’s will have you Starcraft faithful Zerging in your pants. If you do a Google search for “Zerg Rush” you’ll soon find yourself defending your page against the ravaging appetites of ominous Os. It’s a fun and geeky reference to the overwhelming scale of attack carried out by the mass-producing “Zerg” race from the popular RTS game Starcraft.

Maybe for some odd reason you decided to buy an Android phone rather than the iPhone 4S. Maybe you wanted a phone with 3D video and 16 processing cores so you could dual-boot the same crappy games in both Android and Ubuntu at the same time. I do not know your reasons, but if you’re suffering from iPhone envy there’s a new app that can transform your ugly Android device into an iOS styled phone so you can be like the rest of us at Cult of Mac.

Remember back in the day when Apple and Google were all chummy? Back when the original iPhone was released in 2007, and Google wasn’t in the smartphone business? That all changed once Google betrayed Apple’s trust and launched the Android operating system, and ever since then Google has held the stance that they never copied the iPhone. It’s hard to prove that a company wasn’t thinking about something, but newly released designs of Google’s original concept phone from 2006 show that Google wasn’t even considering the creation of a touchscreen smartphone back when the iPhone was unveiled, so they stole Apple’s designs instead once they saw them.

Google Drive was announced yesterday, and we’ve spent some time putting the OS X client software to the test. How does it stand up against the list of rivals (which seems to be growing by the day)?