Mobile tips

Google Maps for mobile had its sixth birthday earlier this month and we�re celebrating by releasing the next generation of Google Maps for Android, which is first to get indoor Google Maps�announced moments ago on the Official Google Blog . We also have two other great additions in this release: a new way to switch between features in the toolbar and a new Places home screen. Mapping the vast indoors When you�re inside an airport, shopping mall, retail store, or other public space, Google Maps 6.0 for Android brings the freestanding map directory to the palm of your hands -- helping you determine where you are, what floor you're on, and where to go indoors. For example, in this busy travel season, you can use Google Maps 6.0 to help you find your way around airports. Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you�re viewing the map and zoomed-in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar �blue dot� icon indicates your location within several meters, and when...

For many of us, the arrival of piles of catalogs marks the start of the holiday shopping season. But what if you could have all your favorite catalogs in one place, with the latest issues always available at your fingertips? Starting today, Google Catalogs is available for Android tablets, as well as the iPad, giving you a new way to shop from the comfort of your couch. With rich product images, videos, and the ability to curate your own personal collages to share with friends, Google Catalogs makes browsing your favorite mail order catalogs easy, fun and interactive. Google Catalogs features more than 125 brands you know and love like Nordstrom , Williams-Sonoma , Nike and Sephora . The app currently has over 400 digital catalog issues to browse across categories such as mens & women�s apparel, jewelry, gifts, gourmet, toys, kids, gadgets, sports & athletics and outdoor adventure. Download the free Google Catalogs app for Android available in the US from Android Market or t...

Earlier this year, we introduced interactive weather information in mobile search results and now this feature is available in 33 more languages . Now when you search for �m�t�o�, �tempo�, �??�, or �weather� in your language, you�ll see the current temperature, humidity level and wind speed for your location. You�ll also get an overall forecast and the weather outlook for the next few days. To see weather conditions at various times throughout the day, move the slider across the next 12 hrs; that way you�ll know if you�ll need a light jacket in the afternoon or perhaps an umbrella in the evening. Give it a try by searching Google for �weather� in your language on your Android or iOS mobile device. Posted by Sungjoon Jung, Software Engineer

(Cross posted on the Inside Search Blog ) Today, we�re very pleased to be launching a significant redesign for the Google Search app for iPad . As you can see in our video, whether you�re doing research and comparing results, or exploring beautiful imagery, we have added new features to make the app more interactive, more visual and to help you find what you want more easily. More interactive You�ll notice that searching is faster and more interactive from your first keystroke. As soon as you begin to type, Google Instant starts to display results, so you don�t even need to press the search button. Once you pick a web page to visit, you�ll see the page load on a new, slide-in pane that will layer over the search results. You can slide the pane to the right to get back to your search results, and even keep scrolling through the results as your web page is loading. This allows you to go back and forth from results to web pages quickly to get the information you are looking for. View sea...

(Cross posted on the Official Gmail Blog ) Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We�ve fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what�s available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch , check out this blog post . In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures. We�re just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they a...

(Cross posted on the Google Translate Blog ) Back in June , we launched five new experimental Indic languages for Google Translate on the desktop and mobile webapp. Today, we�ve updated the Google Translate for iPhone app to add these new alpha languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. This brings the total number of languages supported by the app to 63 languages. The updated app supports the ability to view dictionary results for single words and to display romanizations for these new Indic languages. So even if you can�t read the script the words are written in, you can still take a shot at reading the translation. Since these are still experimental alpha languages, you can expect translations be less fluent and include many more untranslated words than some of our more mature languages�like Spanish or Chinese�which have much more parallel data to power our statistical machine translation approach . Despite these challenges, we believe users will find these new lang...

(Cross posted on the Google Commerce Blog ) Since our launch in August , we�ve been hard at work to bring more great content to Google Catalogs . Today we're excited to announce that we�ve doubled our collection of catalogs to include more than 100 brands and 300 individual issues from the catalogs you love, like Williams-Sonoma , Sephora and Nordstrom . Thanks to our ever-growing list of partners, we�ve expanded the app to include six new catalog categories for you to shop. Love gadgets or the great outdoors? Looking for that perfect holiday treat to send to a friend? Well, look no further than our newly launched catalogs and categories: Gourmet: Dean & Deluca , Mrs. Fields , Wolferman�s , Harry & David , The Swiss Colony , La Tienda , Lobster Gram , Cushman�s , GiftTree , King Arthur Flour and Fairytale Brownies Intimates & Loungewear : Bare Necessities , Fredericks of Hollywood , Spanx and Hanes Athletic & Sports : Nike , Athleta , Gaiam , Champion and Tenni...

Today we�re announcing our new Google Offers mobile app , that allows you to discover, buy and redeem your favorite deals on the go. The free app will notify you about all the great Offers that match your interests. You can purchase offers in just a few clicks and even redeem paperlessly with select merchants. Check out today�s deal from REI on the Google Offers app: $15 for $25 to spend on gear at the national outdoor retailer. Visit Android Market to download the app and check out www.google.com/offers to learn more about Google Offers. The Google Offers mobile app is only available in the US. By Eric Rosenblum, Director of Product Management, Google Offers

(Cross posted on the Official Gmail Blog and Google Enterprise Blog ) Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager Waiting. Walking. Watching TV. Working out. Winding down. Waking up. We check email pretty much everywhere these days. And when we do, we want easy access to our important messages so we can respond quickly and get back to life -- or slinging birds at thieving green pigs. With that in mind, we�ve created a new Gmail app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch . We�ve combined your favorite features from the Gmail mobile web app and iOS into one app so you can be more productive on the go. It�s designed to be fast, efficient and take full advantage of the touchscreen and notification capabilities of your device. And it�s one more reason to switch to Gmail . Speed We want to give you the information you need quickly, with minimal effort and distraction. So we�ve included some time-saving features: Get alerted to new messages with push notifications and sounds Find an email in seconds...