Google launches completely new Google News for iPhone, iPod touch, other mobile devices

Friday, November 20, 2009 · 9:16 am · 11 Comments

“At Google, we are committed to giving you a consistent user experience across products and devices, and we really value the feedback you’ve given us about Google News for mobile. Today we’re excited to announce a completely new Google News offering for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users,” Ankit “Chunky” Gupta and Alok Goel, members of Google’s Mobile News Team, report via The Official Google Mobile Blog.

“This new version provides the same richness and personalization on your phone as Google News provides on desktop,” Gupta and Goel report. “Our new homepage displays more stories, sources, and images while keeping a familiar look and feel. Also, you can now reach your favorite sections, discover new ones, find articles and play videos in fewer clicks. If you are an existing Google News reader on desktop, you will find that all of your personalizations are honored in this mobile version too.”

Gupta and Goel report, “Google News for mobile is now available in 29 languages and 70 editions.”

To check it out, point your iPhone or iPod touch to http://news.google.com.

Categories: All Sites, News

11 Comments

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 10:38 am · Reply

has anyone tried it- is it worth downloading?

Rike

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 10:44 am · Reply

It’s a very good news site, however; too many AP links.

keithbporter

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:01 am · Reply

@t
it’s not an app, it’s the way google news displays on your iPhone…

HolyMackerel

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:23 am · Reply

Rupert just threw a chair…

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:24 am · Reply

What sucks is how it effects mobile searches. Before when I’d search for, say, “Obama statism” in the search window on my iPhone, it’d do a general Google search and then give me a list of other options at the top to refine my results. For example, I could then click on “Images” and get pictures of my query. Or, I could click “News” and it’d give me Google news results for my query.

Now when I click “News” after a search, it just takes me to the Google news front page and I have to re-enter my query a second time. That’s a bitch.

Change tends to bring unforeseen consequences. Hopefully they fix it.

krquet

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:46 am · Reply

Actually, I am not in favour of it.

I travel a bit, and depending on which country you happen to be visiting, this new news page will change the content and language even if you defaulted to English before. It was not the case with the previous version, as early as day before yesterday’s.

Right now mine just auto populated the page in French with the latest headline on Sarcozy. Which is not a problem for me, but then again, it will be when I travel to Japan and Russia in the next few months.

You might think it’s easy to change language, but Google UI is nowhere near Apple’s (actually I consider Amazon’s to be the most user intuitive). For those of you who aren’t convinced, it was a pain a few months ago to switch it back to English from Indic language.
(p.s. I use bookmarks)

But the main concern is, this is more ‘encouraging’ people to join the iGoogle and keep them logged in as often as possible (as if keeping an eye on the IP, MAC and behavioral patterns weren’t enough). I tend to delete my cookies automatically after every session with Firefox and BetterPrivacy (check out the word shared local object in wiki), like that is any help, but I try.

So, anyway, a big thumbs down from me. Sorry for offering this rather lengthy review, but I hope someone might appreciate.

Big Als MBP

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:56 am · Reply

Looks much better now.

Big Als MBP

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:58 am · Reply

@ krquet,

Just don’t let Google be aware of your location, it’s optional, you know.

Jamie

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 12:05 pm · Reply

hehe, Rupert and Ballmer, the chair-throwing duo hell bent on controlling the world…

Jon1

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 12:44 pm · Reply

I liked it better before.
This is not really an improvement.

alansky

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 2:01 pm · Reply

This is totally lame. The Google News home page is formatted for the iPhone, which is great, but all the news articles still appear as they would in the Safari browser: tiny little pages that must be zoomed and scrolled before reading. Thanks for nothing, Google!