Transit directions: Now on S60 & Windows Mobile

A few weeks ago we released Google Maps for mobile with Transit directions for BlackBerry and Java-based handsets. Now, with the release of version 2.2 of the application for Symbian S60 (3rd edition or later) and Windows Mobile (2005 or later), we're happy to say that Transit directions will be available to a bunch more smartphone users around the world.

Transit directions on these platforms work just like they do on the BlackBerry version of the app (watch the demo video). Simply bring up Directions from the main menu and you'll see a second tab labeled Transit (or Public Transport), where you can request a route using only public transportation. You'll receive a number of alternatives that take you (car-free) to your destination. Transit directions are available on Google Maps in more than 50 cities. So whether you live in or are passing through Zurich, Ottawa, Bordeaux or Chicago -- and plenty of places in between -- you can have Transit schedules in your pocket at all times. Stay tuned as we continue working with transit agencies to support more and more cities across the globe!

You'll find a number of other features in this new version of Google Maps for mobile for WinMo and S60: star-ratings for businesses will help you get a feel for what other people think, your search results show up faster than ever, and user-generated content will now surface in your search results -- opening up a whole new world of geo content on your phone. Look for the blue result markers when you search for "ruins in london," for example.

To get this latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Transit, simply point your mobile browser to google.com/gmm. Happy trails.

Posted by Mat Balez, Product Manager

sexy rexy....

...otherwise known as Stephanie Rex, was one of my best friends in high school, and she got married this past weekend! We were close pals especially during those trying times in drill team (go Pacesetters!), and I'm so glad we've kept in touch since then. Her new husband Dave is such a great guy, and he's perfect for her! This was Ryan and my first wedding since our own, so it was super fun to see (and appreciate) all the fun details incorporated. Joyce, another drill team friend and super smart Doctor-to-be, was our tagalong friend, and we had a great time!

Dr. Joyce. She's going to be a pediatrician in 10 months :)

...still fun to see :)

Mr. & Mrs. David Ganaway!

Pacesetter pals...

...doing the signature stance!

Table 10 was definitely where the party was...

only the cool people dance at their tables..

this is Kyle. his little sister dated my little brother. Random.

the fearsome threesome!

doing what we do best on the dance floor :)

such a fun night...

And just for kicks... here are a couple pictures of Steph (sexy rexy), Joyce (joycie liu) and me (jenbabe) back in the day. Gotta love good friends. :)

Gmail for iPhone with Richer UI now in 17 more languages

If you use Gmail in Chinese (Simplified or Traditional), Danish, Dutch, UK English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil or Portugal), Russian, Spanish, or Swedish you can now access a richer Gmail experience for your iPhone that was previously only available in US English. While you've been able to access the integrated Google.com for iPhone in many languages since May, you'll now see a multilingual version of Gmail for iPhone that leverages the AJAX capabilities of the iPhone browser and features address autocomplete, a smoother UI, and mail pre-fetching.

This version of Gmail for iPhone also includes performance and reliability enhancements including faster loading and better support for reading your email in both portrait and landscape modes. These improvements have also been rolled out in US English, as well as for Google Apps email users.

To try out the updated Gmail for iPhone in your language, go to Gmail.com (or the Google Mail site for your country) in your desktop browser, sign in to your Google account, select "Settings," and change your "Gmail display language" to your desired language. Then, go to Google.com in your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser, select the "Gmail" tab, and sign in.

Google Apps users can go to mail.google.com/a/your-domain.com in your desktop browser and then www.google.com/m/a/your-domain.com in your iPhone browser, where "your-domain.com" is replaced with your actual domain name.

携帯からの電子メールをお楽しみください!

Posted by Robert Kroeger, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

momma bush!

**Update on 7/25: She's here!!! The newest Bush arrived at 3:00am at 7lbs 15oz and 20" long! YAY!!!!** (See picture below of her gorgeousness!)

Please pray for our sweet friend Jen Bush as she's going into labor right now!!! Pray that the delivery is smooth, that Jen is as comfortable as possible, that Stephen finds the strength to be her support, and most importantly that Elizabeth Joy comes out a healthy and happy baby girl!!! We can't wait to meet her! :)

We love you Bushes!


**Another update: Here is the most beautiful baby ever!!!!! (Sent from Jen on her cell phone... Many more to come, I'm sure!!!)

Some small updates!

We're happy to announce we've released some small updates to Google App Engine. Among the more significant changes:

• More apps: Want to create more than 3 applications with your App Engine account? Now you can now create up to 10!
• Time windows for Dashboard graphs: Zoom in on the data in your dashboard to get a more accurate picture of whats going on. You can zoom in to see graphs for the last 24, 12, and 6 hour periods.
  
• Logs export: You can now use appcfg.py to download your application's logs in plaintext format. Use appcfg.py --help for more information on how to download your logs.
  
• Send email as logged in user: If you're using the users API, you can now send email from the email address of the currently-logged-in user.

Be sure to update your SDK and check the release notes for a full list of changes. Have more changes you'd like to see with App Engine? Let us know in our Google Group!



Posted by Paul McDonald, App Engine Team

habitat for humanity

Ryan and I are absolutely LOVING our new newlywed class at church. We've met some great people already, and we can't wait to get to know them even better! Last Saturday morning, we all got together to do Habitat for Humanity for a home in downtown Dallas. It was pretty hot, but I'm glad we got the morning shift! We spent the day putting up siding on the house which is a lot harder than it looks!

Here are some pics of everyone working hard...

boys laying the shingles

Lon & Rue, a couple of our teachers

starting to nail the siding on the house

Mischa (a newlywed) and Rue

And now, a few couples we've gotten to know...

First up: Courtney and Matt... a precious couple who got married a month ago! Matt is in seminary and Courtney is super funny and took more pictures than I did that day! Hard to believe. :)

Merydith and Danny... very cute engaged couple who are both teachers!

Mischa and Matt: they are hilarious! And they just got married 3 weeks ago in California.. hence the nice tans :) Also, they both randomly went to the same high school as me! Small world!

Poor Joe's wife Hollen had to work, but she was there in spirit! They are a really fun (and sarcastic) couple that are very similar to us :)

And then there's us... nice and sweaty. Ick!

We've been so blessed by this class already, and we've only been in it for a little over a month! I can't wait to see what the Lord does through all of us, and I'm excited to get to know everyone better. You can never have too many friends :)

Mobile Tricks with the Google Mobile App

It turns out we're not the only ones excited about the new Google Mobile App for iPhone and iPod Touch. Adam Pash, of the productivity blog Lifehacker, shows off how he uses the Google Mobile App.


Our friends at Blendtec got a new 3G iPhone and loaded it up with the Google Mobile App... and you can guess what happened next.


Keep your submissions coming! Remember, they should have the Mobile Tricks slides at the beginning and end of the clip, so we can feature them on our Mobile Tricks YouTube channel.

Posted by Effie Seiberg, Mobile Trickster

New updates to Google.com for the iPhone

Unless you're living on a deserted island -- and maybe even if you are -- you know about Apple's 3G iPhone and App Store launch last week. Hopefully you know about the Google Mobile App that we launched last week, as well. And some of you may have noticed that we also released a new version of Google.com for the iPhone and iPod touch.

At Google, improving the speed of our applications and user experience is a top priority. The new Google.com for the iPhone browser now loads twice as fast as before -- and not just over 3G or Wi-Fi but also EDGE. We've optimized the page for fast searching, while still providing easy access to other Google applications including Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and many others under the More tab. We also improved the user interface so that there's more room on the page for search results. Take a look at the screen shot below to see how we've eliminated wasted space.

Also, when you click on a search result, the destination web site now opens in the same browser window that you conducted your search with. This means that you can instantly return to your search results or the Google home page by simply pressing the back button of your browser.

Finally, you can now access any of the application tabs directly by adding them to your iPhone Home Screen. We've created cool new icons for all the applications. Simply go to www.google.com in your browser, tap on any of the application tabs, click the "+" button, and select "Add to Home Screen." The icons will appear on your iPhone Home Screen allowing you to go directly to the application with a tap of your finger. Collect the whole set!

The new version of Google.com works on your 3G iPhone as well as the original iPhone and iPod touch. If you use Google Apps, you can also access this new version by going to www.google.com/m/a/your-domain.com, where "your-domain.com" is replaced with your actual domain name.

Posted by Steve Kanefsky, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

oh, those summer nights

So, Allie's birthday was June 21st, but she was gracious enough to let us wait and celebrate it 3 weeks later! (Summers are a busy time when you have a bunch of minister friends going to camps, mission trips, etc.!) So we thought it would be lots of fun to go "old school" and enjoy some pizza and arcade games at none other but Gatti Town! We had a blast!

Although when we showed up to Allie's, we all noticed something verrrrry strange:

So Allie changed :)

We had a great time reliving our childhood and trying to win prizes :)

the girls. (steph, me, alibob, mak and karen)

they were annoyed that i asked for this picture. oh well

my sweetie won me something :)

Kind of embarrassing...but this horse race game was HARD. And I was sore the next day.

boys doing their thing:

Later that night, we went to Frisco's Movie in the Square night. Super Man Returns was playing, and it was so much fun! We all sat out on blankets and lawn chairs and watched the movie along with other families in the cute little town square.

Steph brought funfetti cupcakes in ice cream cones! They were super cute, but way sweet :) Still, a very cute idea and very festive for Allie's birthday!

Aaron got a little hot and fussy when the movie was getting to be over 2.5 hours, but it was pretty funny...

All in all, a great night with awesome friends. Yay for fun Summer nights!

Google Code Jam up and running on App Engine

Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice. The Top 500 participants will advance to onsite competitions at a local Google office to compete against those in their region (Asia Pacific; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and the Americas). The Top 100 will participate in the final round at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.


The application that runs the competition is built on App Engine. It was developed by a few Google engineers in their 20% time and is currently serving about 200 requests per second.


If you are interested in participating you still have a few hours to register. Go to the Code Jam site and check out the live scoreboard!


Posted byPaul McDonald, App Engine Team

Rate and Review Businesses from Your Phone

Last Saturday I had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco's Richmond District. While it didn't look like much from the outside, the inside displayed a variety of Southeast Asian antiques and the walls were adorned with tapestries and bamboo. Our waiter was friendly and attentive and the phở was the best I've had in the city -- just the right amount of spice tempered with bean sprouts and fresh cilantro. When I finished my meal, I took out my phone and wrote a five-star review on Google. By the time the check came, my review was already incorporated into the business listing.

Now you can share your opinions on local businesses by rating and reviewing them right from your mobile phone. It's easy, fast, and a great way to pass the time while you're waiting for the check! Here's all you have to do:

• Go to www.google.com on your mobile browser
• Search for the business by name and location like "pot pho sf ca”
• Click on the business name on the results page to view details
• Scroll down and click on "Sign in to write/edit your review"

This new mobile feature uses the same database found on Google Maps on the desktop, so when you rate and review a business from your phone, your opinions are also published to the millions of Google Maps users around the world. You can even click on the My Profile link in Maps to see all of the businesses you've reviewed.

For now, this feature is available on non-iPhone handsets in the US. Stay tuned for an iPhone version and international coverage.

Posted by Josh Siegel, Product Manager, Google mobile team

Infineon, Triquint Winners in iPhone 3G

Well, it took no time at all for someone to crack open the new iPhone 3G and see what chips are inside. iFixit.com got one in the first major time zone for it to go on sale (New Zealand) and dissected it immediately (http://live.ifixit.com/images/XiuvbfUecK3GsDUm-large.jpg). Infineon with 4 chips and Triquint with 3 chips were the clear winners here. Skyworks had one chip, a quad band amplifier module which I think they also had a similar part in the first generation iPhone. Triquint has 3 amplifier modules that include an input filter, linear amplifier, duplexer and coupler. Infineon has the GPS, digital baseband processor, UMTS transceiver and power management IC. This should be a good boost for Triquint and Infineon is already a major player in these areas but it will be good PR for them also.