Google Releases “Google Mobile” for iPad (P.S. It’s Ugly)

Google has released an update to its Google Mobile application, making it compatible with the iPad. Guess what, the application seems to really sucks, as it doesn’t take advantage of any new feature of the iPad and only cares about putting the same old iPhone things on a bigger screen.

From the App Store page:

- My Location - avoid typing your current location when searching for nearby businesses;

- Google Suggest - tap suggested web search queries and local businesses that appear as you type;

- Search history - quickly search again for queries you recently performed;

- Vertical search - search Google Maps, Images, News, and Shopping

The very same old stuff. Check out the screenshots after the break.

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BREAKING: Opera for iPhone Approved!

That’s right folks, Apple has finally approved Opera for iPhone, which has started showing up in the international App Stores. By now we’ve only managed to get a screenshots of the Japanese App Store, which is listing the app as free in productivity. [Link]

We’ll keep you posted with our review. But anyway, this is great news for all those who feared that Apple wouldn’t approve this. Good job.

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Working With Evernote for iPad

I haven’t been an Evernote user for a long time. I remember tried this popular service many months ago for the first time and while I was impressed by the tons of features it offered, I was seriously disappointed by the official Mac client. It didn’t feel native to me, and the UI was a mess. Even after I applied some custom elements from Susumu Yoshida, I wasn’t happy with it.

But I’ve got an iPad, and I heard the optimized version of Evernote for the new device was worth checking out. Still, I had my doubts. I mean, going back to the service I tried and didn’t like? Having to deal once again with that Mac app? After putting some thought on it, I decided that I had to try it again, anyway. New platform, new app, new interface - perhaps Evernote would have done better this time.

Evernote on the iPad is very good. So good that I’ve been writing my posts on it for 5 days now.

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Felt Tip Couch to 5K Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Felt Tip Couch to 5K giveaway.We also want to thank the Felt Tip developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

Savio

Dan Palmer

Erik Scottberg

Lauren

Weston Gallagher

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week.

You can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet or Federico as @viticci

Twitter Also Acquired Tweetie for Mac, But It Won’t Be Renamed

The big news last week was that Twitter acquired Loren Brichter’s Tweetie for iPhone, which has been renamed “Twitter for iPhone” and will be released soon in the App Store, for free.

As Twitter made this announcement people started wondering what happened to Tweetie for Mac. Brichter himself later announced that he was still working on it, but he wasn’t too clear about it. Today, with a post on Twitter Development group, Ryan Saver confirmed that they also acquired Tweetie for Mac as part of a deal, but it won’t go under any name change and will be kept free.

“One more from me. People have been asking for specific details around Tweetie for Mac and I wanted to make sure we clearly message our plans as we know it. To be clear, Tweetie for the iPhone and its developer, Loren Brichter, were the focus of our acquisition, but as part of the deal we also got Tweetie for Mac.

Loren had been hard at work on a new version of Tweetie for Mac that he was going to release soon. Our plan is to still release the new version and it will continue to be called Tweetie (not renamed to Twitter). We will also discontinue the paid version.”

So, Tweetie 2 for Mac is real, is developed inside Twitter’s office but will still be called Tweetie. And it will be free.

Now, this is great news for us.

Pictures of Windows 1.01 and Rhapsody Running on the iPad

Seems like iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith is on a roll these days. After managing to install the iPhone clock app on the iPad, he installed and run Windows 1.01 and Apple’s Rhapsody using Bochs on the iPad.

Sure they’re buggy and crash, but it’s a good achievement nevertheless. Not just because he managed to run Windows 1.01 (I mean, who wants to use it anyway?) but because this opens many possibilities, like trying to run Chrome OS on Apple’s new device. Stuff that geeks and hackers love, basically.

We’ve included the pictures after the break.

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NewsRack Brings Feeds Reading to the iPad. Reviewed.

In my review of Twitterrific, I wrote that one of the first things I did when the iPad App Store went public was to search for good Twitter clients. Guess what, right after I settled with Iconfactory’s app I started looking for a decent RSS application. At the moment of writing this, there are not so many feeds readers available for the iPad, but I can say there are a few good ones. I bet it’s just a matter of time for Google Reader clients to come out, as developers are finally working on real devices now.

To better understand the situation, we should make a step backward and recap what’s going on with the iPhone and feeds readers. Reeder 2 is the application I’m now using every day to catch up with the news while I’m on the go and I have time to read something. It’s an elegant, minimal and polished piece of software. But, we at MacStories have reviewed many Google Reader clients before and I’ve been switching back and forth between different solutions myself, until I decided to keep Reeder 2 on my home screen. There’s this other application for iPhone though, which is very popular among users, that sports a good amount of features geared towards power users of Google Reader: Newsrack, previously known as Newsstand.

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