loving the Apple (in a Beta'ish way)
While there is no official announcement yet (in the next few hours), but Google has activated the traffic status with information streamed from Land Transport Authority. When you go to Google Maps Singapore, you will notice a new tab – “Traffic” which will show you either a Live traffic update or a predicted traffic status, based on past records. You can also plan your route with public transport information included (not sure if this is new though).
This new feature also shows up on the Maps app on your iPhone, although with a smaller feature set as the Desktop browser version. where the options to travel by car, public transport or walking is available. If you select to travel by public transport, you can set Departure or Arrival time and the routes will be suggested accordingly. For both – green symbolises smooth traffic, yellow moderate and red as slow traffic.
Hopefully coming up after this, is the launch of Google Maps Navigation for iPhone.
Try it on your iPhone now and let us know whether it matches the traffic situation where you at! Between Google Maps now and gothere.sg, we’ll have plenty of good choices in route planning for our small island!
See attached screen shots on the various settings available.
Google has extended the features of the mobile Google Docs by giving editing capabilities to spreadsheets stored in there.
Last night, we launched new capabilities to Google Docs for your phone that allow you to add new rows, edit existing cells, sort by columns, and filter by terms. Now you don’t have to wait until you get to your computer to update a spreadsheet, whether it’s your expense tracker, time sheet, or your wine rating spreadsheet.
Though the screen real estate is already limited when you activate the keyboard, Google still managed to format the display of the spreadsheet, making it easily editable.
Hopefully, the editing feature is extended to Documents and as and when Apple decides to put in Cut & Paste, the iPhone can easily replace the laptop for the mobile workers.
Google just announced a beta version of Google Sync that will let you sync over the air your Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar with your iPhone. Google Sync uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to allow updates (except Gmail) to be pushed between your Google account and your iPhone.
Instructions on setting up can be found on the Google Support page but do take note on a few points. As it is still beta, it is best that all data on the iPhone is fully backed up and your Mac’s AddressBook and iCal are updated.
Some additional points:
Watch a video introduction from Google about Google Sync:
Catching up on news the past week – pricing for battery replacement on the 17-inch MacBook Pro, new Google Quick Search application and 3rd party browser appearing in the App Store.
Macworld 2009 has started and here are some of the first day news that are interesting – Google Picassa, BusyCal and Roxio Toast 10. More to come as we look forward to the keynote address tomorrow.
Local startup GoThere.sg provides a valuable service for people who travels, and especially for those who are clueless about places in Singapore. Basically the site gives you fast and accurate instructions to get from Point A to Point B, either by public transport or by car. And the latest update by them, push their value up a few notches!
Firstly new maps. These included updated routes like the KPE which Google Maps had yet to include which they were using previously. And to two-up Google (or double one-up), they also included a limited coverage of Google’s Street View which have yet to reach Singapore.
They have improved driving directions, including new routes like the KPE, realtime information about the dreaded ERP (including the cost and locations), and you can even look into the future and see how much it’ll cost to drive at a future time.
If you need to cab, there is also a new section where it will tell you the best route and the estimated cost, including all the various surcharges!
Now all they need is to port all these new functions (especially driving directions) onto the mobile version at http://gothere.sg/m for use on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
(via Lucian’s twitter)
Got this warning page when I surfed to Facebook’s Request page on my Safari. This is a warning from Google’s Safe Browsing API that helps to prevent phishing from links you clicked.
The Safe Browsing API is an experimental API that enables client applications to check URLs against Google’s constantly updated blacklists of suspected phishing and malware pages. Your client application can use the API to download an encrypted table for local, client-side lookups of URLs that you would like to check.
On closer inspection, the problem arises when the FaceBook request page, who’s URL is http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#friend, contains numerous instances of this URL http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/ which seems to be where images, stylesheets and other files that are called up by the Request page. When you click Report an Error button, you’ll find the offending URL http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/common/redirectiframe.html that triggered the warning.
Anyone knows why Google deems that as suspicious?
To have Google’s Safe Browsing when you’re on Safari, go get the latest version of Saft – one of the must have Safari plugin – and you’ll be protected.
Google released a new tool called Calaboration that simplifies the work to add your Google Calendars into iCal into a few simple steps.
In a few moments, when you open your iCal, you will find those selected Google Calendars appearing on the left of your iCal. To find out more information, click on Preference and select Accounts. There you can find the various Google Calendars’ information.
Pretty easy to setup.
Syncing is pretty fast. Entries made in iCal is immediately sent to the cloud and appears in Google Calendar. Entries made in Google Calendar will also appear in iCal upon refreshing, whether automatically depending on the refresh rates set in Preference->Accounts, or done manually.
One issue when adding entries to the Shared calendar is you have to select the correct calendar on the left hand sidebar you are syncing to Google before you can create the entry in the calendar. No options to select other Shared calendars. Likewise, if you are selecting a native iCal calendar, you cannot add entries to the Shared calendars. This should be easily fixed…
One other thing I hope to be able to do now, is to sync a calendar from iCal to Google Calendar, including the ability to add/edit items while in Google Calendar. You can add your iCal calendar to Google Calendar if you publish it to MobileMe or your own server but it is only a read-only calendar.
When that happens, the cycle is complete!
Google’s been working hard in their effort to improve the features of the Google Map services in Singapore. First, we seen signs of Google Street View coming here soon.
Now recently, they added Postal code search and reverse Geo-coding while in Google Map as posted by SinGeo.
With Postal Code search, you can key in the 6-digit postal code while searching. That said, the database seems to be incomplete as it failed to return a result when I searched for Apple Singapore (postal code 569086) or the Istana. But when a result is shown, Google been able to get within a block or two of the location – example Funan IT Mall
This also works on the Map app on your iPhone & iPod Touch.
After some wait, the Google Mobile App (iTunes link) has been updated with new features, included the much awaited voice search.
That’s why we’ve added voice search to Google Mobile App for the iPhone — and made it super easy to use. Once the app is running, you don’t have to tap any buttons. Just hold the iPhone to your ear, wait for the beep, and say what you’re looking for — Googleblog
As much as I’d like to try, Google has disabled the voice search for iPod Touch, even with a plugged-in earphones with mic. Hopefully they will enable in the next update since some iPhone users will prefer to speak with the earphones.
Another new feature is the use of My Location to provide better search results based on your location.
If you have tried it, especially with Singaporean search topics, let me know how it goes!
Do note that this is only available via the US iTunes store.
Here are some URLs for your fav Google sites and Google Apps that you can access which are optimized for your iPhone or iPod Touch, as compiled by Alex Chitu from http://googlesystem.blogspot.com