Appletell

Google will announce an update to its popular unified homepage for the Safari browsers of iPhone/touch devices.  The current design, just six weeks old will be usurped by a new version that improves the experience.  The original brought together many of Google’s handy services like search, Gmail, RSS, and others onto one screen for simplified navigation.

The design, dubbed Grand Prix internally at Google, in it’s new version will bring more speed and customization.  Speedier Gmail means you’ll receive new mail updates without the need to refresh.  Speedier Calandar means you now get a month view without having to scroll.  You can now customize the tabs across the top depending on what you’d like to see there.  And finally you can access your iGoogle gadgets from your iPhone.  I, for one, can tell you these additions are very welcome.

The spur behind this fast development cycle is the fact that iPhone/touch owners are using these devices to get online.  Apparently, on Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhone/touch devices was greater than from any other OS.  Now traffic after Christmas trailed off, allowing Symbian devices to reclaim the #1 spot but the iPhone stayed on at the #2 spot.  This is a big deal because the iPhone only represents 2% of the world’s smartphones (if you want to call it that).

Read: [Google Operating System]
Press release: [Google]

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