Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone
iPhone gets iGoogle
An optimized version of iGoogle is now available for iPhone users. iGoogle, which can be customized to display RSS feeds, news on a variety of topics, crossword puzzles, weather maps, online tetris, etc. The iPhone optimized version lists all feeds and gadgets in one column (and if the TestiPhone.com site is to be believed, content is scaled to the screen) and you can select individual tabs at the bottom of the page (very similar to the traditional iGoogle set-up). The iGoogle iPhone address is http://www.google.com/ig/i and it is a significant improvment over the US-only Google Mobile page.
iGoogle on the iPhone (simulated)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Beau said 8:18PM on 1-11-2008
Sounds cool, but there's *still* no support for Google Apps accounts with the iPhone interface.
Also, if anyone would like to try the iPhone optimised site that *isn't* in the US -
(for example, I keep getting redirected to Google Australia), point mobilesafari to http://google.com/ncr
This tells Google *not* to redirect to your country specific site, so you get the pretty iPhone interface.
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punkassjim said 10:16PM on 1-11-2008
It's got a youtube preview box that doesn't work, that's pretty sweet. And has anyone noticed that gmail now has an iPhone mobile portal too? I must've missed that.
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Beau said 11:07PM on 1-12-2008
Been there for a while :-)
Oliver said 10:23PM on 1-11-2008
Damn, this new iPhone version of igoogle sucks. And they don't give you a choice! What's the point of a desktop class browser if you're ONLY allowed to view the mobile version of a webpage on it? Now, to view some of my rss feeds on igoogle, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom. Google, fix this! Give me a choice!
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Stevensnewest said 10:53PM on 1-11-2008
ummm......idiot, you need to have a google account to customize it, and when or you do have one, you have to customize it from your computer. you can't do it from your iPhone/iPod touch.
do a little more research before complaining next time dumbass.
Oliver said 11:21PM on 1-11-2008
haha, you misunderstand me, Stevensnewest. I'm not talking about not being able to customize iGoogle. I have an account, and I can access the desktop-optimized version on my computer and the iPhone-optimized version on the iPhone. What I mean is that before the iPhone-optimized version of iGoogle came out, www.google.com/ig would direct me to the desktop version, even if I was on the iPhone. The desktop version, as you might know, has your rss feeds in three columns. I prefer that vastly to the iPhone version, which is basically one column of all the feeds, and to view the feed on the bottom, you'd have to scroll all the way to the bottom. I understand how some people would prefer the iPhone version... I don't; it doesn't seem efficient to have to scroll that much. They should give us the option to use the desktop version of iGoogle on the iPhone, rather that forcing us to use the iPhone version.
popcreen said 11:11PM on 1-11-2008
That's great, but they need to go ALL the way, so that when you touch the iPhone link, it keeps the next page in the same format for the iPhone. Like, NY Times has an iPhone-optimized setup, and so does the LA Times.
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Max said 11:19PM on 1-11-2008
Still much prefer my Netvibes mobile. Even the facebook widget still works, plus other things like my twitter widget, email widgets, weather, etc.
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Nick said 5:34AM on 1-12-2008
Hmm, a Google vids feed on iGoogle... Perhaps Flash support is only a keynote away.
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coletek said 7:46AM on 1-12-2008
ig/i:
performance is better, format is worse. give me the old format with this performance. it's very boring & too much scrolling.
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Matthew Waters said 7:58AM on 1-12-2008
Is it me, or are "iPhone optimised" pages the exact REVERSAL of what Apple were trying to do for the iPhone by including such a capable version of Safari?
They were trying to get the regular web in all of its glory (or not) onto a mobile device without site designers having to create custom pages for them like they did back in the WAP days.
Matt
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Zaph said 8:20AM on 1-12-2008
You can enter "igoogle" and touch "Go instead of "www.google.com/ig/i". iPhone auto adds the .com, google redirects to "google/ig/i" and the leading "www" is not necessary for most web sites automatically.
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Mike said 1:48PM on 1-12-2008
Do not want.
This sucks. I really enjoyed using the desktop version of igoogle on my iphone. I could scroll around and double tap my way to ecstacy. This new iphone specific version fails horribly. (for my preferences at least.)
Is there a way to force igoogle to load the desktop version as default?
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sys_ops911 said 6:36PM on 1-12-2008
yah bookmark it.
FunFred said 4:17PM on 1-13-2008
No, bookmarking it doesn't work.
Honestly, I played around with it for a few minutes, and there doesn't seem to be a way. At least not that I can find.
However, there is a little thing that may help ease the pain that you may or may not have noticed.
If you tap the title of one of the sections, it expands/contracts. So if you have some sections that you read more than others, you can keep them expanded/hidden in ways that make it easy to skim through.
sys_ops911 said 5:54AM on 1-15-2008
http://www.google.co.nz/ig bypasses the new iphone page.
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VM_KING said 8:14PM on 1-16-2008
Thank You for the website. I do feel that with the new format I went back a couple years. They should give us a choice. I love zooming in and out of headlines I want to read. That one of iphones biggest draws for me, web page format. I love google, but shame on them!
Mabedan said 5:06AM on 1-14-2008
best web app i've ever used...
you can read all your daily news there, really easily. in usual one, you can't read topics easily, and to read the details you need to zoom too much to click the plus button.
plus, you can use all google web gadgets inside it :)
i really really love it
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Luigi Semenzato said 8:53AM on 1-14-2008
I have to agree with the negative comments from most other posters: ig/i is worse than ig on the iPhone. Even if it weren't, it's very presumptuous of Google to assume they know better and not leave their users a choice.
Quite surprising as I don't remember Google ever screwing up before.
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Gadget Badger said 9:39AM on 1-16-2008
I'm an iGoogle gadget developer, and really welcome this. It seems to work well because of the standardised format of gadgets, and that there's a vast library of gadgets.
I wonder if my Spectrum iGoogle Gadget (http://www.gadgetbadger.com/zx-spectrum/
) will work on it :) Anyone out there can try it for me?... check out my blog for this and other iGoogle Gadgets for iPhone.
http://www.gadgetbadger.com/
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