Google announced last week that their mobile search service now returns results based on your location.
User must opt-in to enable this feature, and that setting can be changed at anytime. We’ll be testing it out soon and will let you know what we think.
Is anyone else out there using it yet? What say you?
3 comments September 15th, 2008
In case you missed it, Google announced the final results of their first Android Developer Challenge last week. Out of 50 team finalists, ten teams won $275,000 each, and another ten won $100,000.
To get a glimpse of the types of apps we’ll be seeing on the Android phones later this year, go take a look at their gallery of finalists. And if you’ve been thinking about creating an app yourself, this will be sure to get your creative juices flowing. There’s a 95% chance you will only think about it and never carry it through, so be that other 5% this time and write one – even a simple one. The first one won’t be your best anyway, and you’ll be way ahead of the curve.
We will no doubt be covering these creative and exciting apps in more detail here on MobileMammoth, so stay tuned.
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/08/presenting-winners-of-android-developer.html
3 comments September 5th, 2008
News is spreading about Google’s announcement of its Chrome browser.
The Chrome website is not live now (gotta love the fake 404 page they placed there), but according to Google’s Matt Cutts, it will be by Tuesday.
1 comment September 1st, 2008
As anticipated, the FCC has officially approved the first mobile phone to run on the Google Android platform. As we anticipated back in March, the Dream from Korean handset manufacturer HTC was just recently approved, and could be released by November 10, or possibly earlier. Wireless carrier T-Mobile will be the carrier for the phone in the U.S.
It will be very interesting to see how much momentum this first Android phone builds. There will be a good surge of early adopters for the holiday season, but it will take a bit of time before more Android apps become available and the platform is more stable. At that point though, watch out iPhone.
Find out more about the Android platform here.
Add comment August 19th, 2008
The Big G released its first ever mobile application for the iPhone and iPod Touch last week. Dubbed the Google Mobile App, the application lets you search the web or your iPhone contacts, and includes many features you’d find within Google desktop search products (one of my favorites is Google Suggest).
The Google team released this video highlighting the Google Mobile App features:
It’s interesting to see Google’s investment in the iPhone platform, considering the Google Android phones are just a few months away from reality. Still, even Google knows it will take quite a while for the Android phones to knock the iPhone off it’s perch.
Add comment July 14th, 2008
Google is making it just a bit easier to avoid the $4+ gas prices these days. Google Maps for Mobile now provides local transit directions. Find out how in the video below:
1 comment June 10th, 2008
What do Yahoo! Finance, Scottrade, eTrade, and most other finance portals have in common? Their free stock quotes are all delayed by at least 10 minutes (Yahoo! Finance does offer a free trial for their service, but you must sign up for it).
Google Finance made a big leap forward today by announcing their quotes are now displayed in real-time. That’s impressive.
So what does this have to do with mobile, one might ask? You may be aware that Google offers a free SMS service, which includes providing stock quote information. Simply text message the ticker symbol to GOOGL (46645), and you will receive the current, real-time quote in a return message. I did multiple tests today, and each time I received a response within 18 seconds or less. That’s much better than the 20 minute market delay you’ll find at Scottrade or eTrade — and those are on their regular website.
Now go use that to your advantage!
Read Today’s Announcement
Find Out More on Google Text Message (SMS) Services
5 comments June 2nd, 2008
If you dial 411 from your mobile phone, stop. Almost all carriers charge a fee, and those fees can add up over the course of a month or a year.
The good news is there are several mobile 411 services available for free today. One of those is Goog411, from Google. Simply dial 800-GOOG411. Take a look at the Google video below to see what it’s all about.
If you use any other 411 services from your mobile phone, let us know what you thought!
7 comments April 16th, 2008
For the longest time, I checked my Gmail account from my BlackBerry by firing up the embedded browser and navigating over to gmail.com like it was 2005. That worked just fine and dandy, but it was slower than I would have liked and was not the best mobile interface. After breaking down and downloading the suite of Google mobile applications for the BlackBerry, I may never go back to my old ways.
So I downloaded the entire suite of Google apps, which includes the Google Mobile Updater to keep them all up to date. Here’s a quick list of what the Google Mobile applications include (in order of what I use most often):
All the icons for these apps appear on your main screen. I can now check my Gmail much faster, and it’s got a cleaner mobile interface that I can do things like reply or compose emails so much faster. I now use Google Maps instead of the default BlackBerry maps application.
If you use Gmail and have a BlackBerry, trust me when I say this will make your life easier. Go ahead and pull the trigger on the Google Mobile apps for your BlackBerry, and call me out if you disagree!
To download Google Apps for your BlackBerry (or any web-enabled mobile phone), navigate to mobile.google.com from your mobile browser, and select Google Mobile Updater. The download process will let you pick and choose which apps you want, or you can do what I did and download them all.
Tip: Here’s a tip straight from the folks at Google Mobile. To get instant access to Google Search from your BlackBerry, press the Convenience Key, then go to Options->Screen/Keyboard->Convenience Key and select ‘Google Search’.
Add comment April 11th, 2008
Back in December, Google announced an iPhone version of Picasa for viewing pictures on the go. Just yesterday, Google announced a newer release specifically for Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen devices.
The feature that stood out for me was that if you download Google Gears for Mobile to your handheld device, you can access your Picasa albums even when your phone is not connected to the web. Now that is handy.
For all your Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen toting kids out there – go check it out for yourself.
3 comments April 3rd, 2008
