I use iGoogle on every computer that I use on a regular basis. I get all my headlines, my mail, my calendar, all in one place and my internet experience is easily brought with me whatever computer I use. The iPhone is no exception. I daily open iGoogle on my iPhone and read a large list of all my iGoogle content. It’s great, or should I say, it WAS great.
Today, I opened iGoogle on my iPhone and noticed that Google released a new version of the mobile iGoogle site. At first, I thought it might be kind of cool. The item titles looked better to me, but then as I read the page, and I noticed that not all of my iGoogle stuff was there. It looks like they made it so that your mobile iGoogle settings are separate from your computer iGoogle settings. I’m not too happy about that. Basically, not all of my iGoogle items were being displayed and I had to select ‘Add Stuff’ on the mobile site that brought up a list of all of the things that ought to be there, which were there in my computer’s iGoogle. All my news feeds now only display 3 headlines per feed and you have to click “more” under each block in order to read a set of 5 headlines and more detailed descriptions for each. I liked the old interface better. Not only could I see the same amount of headlines on my computer and my iPhone, but I would also have the entire thing on one page. With the new interface, after 6 blocks, it creates another page for the remainer of your headlines blocks. It now requires that I visit several more pages to be able to view my feeds, which really blows. I can’t just glance at 7 at a time. I’m limited to only 3 at a glance, and only 5 after I click more. What was Google thinking with this.
The one semi-decent featured added to this mobile iGoogle revision is the ability to set the order of how things will appear. Before, the order of the blocks didn’t match on the computer iGoogle and the iPhone iGoogle. Unfortunately, this was also pretty poorly implemented. You can only either send a block to the top of the list, or to the bottom, meaning you can’t pick your favourite and make it your top choice and then order the pages in that order. It really makes it difficult to arrange things the way you want them if you decided that you like something that is 4th to be something like 3rd, because you can’t simply tell one item to go third. You have to sent it to the top, and then resend your 1st and 2nd choice to the top. Really, what they should have done was make sure the computer headlines order matched the iPhone iGoogle order and they wouldn’t have had to make this strange independent settings page specifically for the mobile iGoogle.
I know this is turning a bit into a rant, and I should probably try this new mobile iGoogle for longer before I post this, but damn it Google, you screwed up my iPhone feed reading. I’m not impressed. This might be a good version for non-iPhone users, and maybe they’re trying to create one single mobile iGoogle version, but I want the iPhone version back!
UPDATE: I found a partial fix, check it out.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Scape // Jan 16, 2009 at 2:28 am
It seems to me that iphone version doesnt work and we (iphone users) see standard mobile version. If i open article page from igoogle it is formated for mobiles.
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peter Reply:
January 17th, 2009 at 2:04 am
You’re totally right. I guess I’ve never seem the standard iGoogle mobile before. In any case, it still totally sucks compared to what we iPhone users used to have.
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2 iGoogle for iPhone is gone: Google, you suck | technoholic.ca // Jan 17, 2009 at 2:26 am
[...] it seems that what I thought was a revision to iGoogle for the iPhone was in fact just Google redirecting everyone to the standard iGoogle mobile version, dropping the [...]
3 dusty59 // Jan 17, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I agree with you, it stinks. I’ve been searching around for info on it- there’s a few threads on google support forums. google needs to reverse this bs decision.
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4 LuckyMan // Jan 18, 2009 at 5:06 am
It sucks. However http://www.google.com/ig/i still works on a desktop browser – which gives me a glimmer of hope that it still might be a mistake (surely they would have removed that page if they were scrapping support for it). Possible that ‘Paul’ who responded on the Google support forums was misinformed. Trying to stay optimistic!
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