New Version of Gmail Mobile for iPhone and Android

Google launched an updated version of Gmail for iPhone and Android phones that takes advantage of some advanced features from their browsers. Gmail's mobile site can now be used even when you're offline thanks to iPhone's offline storage and Android's implementation of Gears. "If the data network drops out on you, rest assured that Gmail won't. You'll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose over a flaky, or non-existent, network connection."

Some other enhancements: Gmail loads faster, there's a floating toolbar that includes options like archiving or reporting spam and the interface is more consistent.

"When we make it broadly available, people are going to see this as the first HTML 5 mobile application. It'll be like Gmail in 2004. It was a great watershed moment for Ajax apps," said Google's Vic Gundotra last week. While mobile Gmail is not the first web application that takes advantage of HTML 5 features, it's one of the pioneers.


There's also a new version of Google Calendar that lets you edit events and has an option to cache previously-viewed events. Both updated applications work only for iPhone OS 2.2.1+ and all Android phones.

Timeline of Articles from a Google News Cluster

Google News enhanced the presentation for the clusters of related articles: after showing options to filter the articles, a search option and feeds, Google News added a graph that shows the number of sources covering the story. There's also a timeline that lets you understand how the story developed.

"Our grouping technology takes into account many factors, such as titles, text, and publication time. We then use various clustering algorithms to identify stories we think are closely related," explains the help center.

Google Image Search Suggest

Google started to show suggestions when you type a query in Google Image Search one week after the worldwide rollout of Google Suggest for web search. The suggestions from Google Image Search include many specific words like "paintings", "pictures", "wallpaper", "cartoon", "photos", "landscape", "logo", so they're obtained by analyzing the most popular queries from the image search engine. It's worth noting that Google Image Search shows suggestions on the results pages as well, not just on the homepage.


Google Suggest is now enabled by default in 3 Google search engines: web search, image search, Google Video and it can be disabled from the preferences page or by appending &complete=0 to the URL.

Since August 2008, when the suggestions were first enabled at Google.com, some people complained that the feature is annoying, distracting and it disables browser's autocomplete. Others find it useful: "I rather enjoy this feature, it sometimes helps me form a more coherent search term that yields more results, and it also reduces the number of keystrokes since it finishes words for me even if I've never searched them before". It's also an idea generator, a way to explore trends, attitudes, reactions, and a tool that helps you type complicated queries.


Now that most browsers and toolbars, all major search engines and many other important sites (Amazon, eBay, YouTube) offer query suggestions, people will expect to see them in any search box.

Disable Google Chrome's New Tab Page

Google Chrome used to display a special page that included nine thumbnails for the most frequently visited pages, a list of recent bookmarks and recently closed pages. The feature couldn't be disabled from the interface and you couldn't remove the thumbnails you didn't like.

Google Chrome 3 updated the new tab and you can now hide the thumbnails and the list of recently visited pages. Just click on the small arrow at the top of the new tab page and disable the features you don't like. You'll still see Google Chrome's logo and some tips, but the page is almost blank.


The recent builds of Google Chrome include support for user scripts and it's not very difficult to write a script that hides all the content from the new tab page.

If you use Google Chrome 2 Beta, the developer version or a recent Chromium build, you can easily enable the user scripts support by following the instructions from this page: find or create a shortcut for Chrome's executable, right-click on the shortcut, select "Properties" and append to the value from the Target field --enable-user-scripts (include a space before the flag). Create a directory named User Scripts in one of these locations and save this user script in the directory. You may need to restart Google Chrome if it's already running.

Another useful user script for Google Chrome is AdSweep, a basic version of AdBlock Plus without user interface and subscriptions. "AdSweep is a small addon that aims to hide advertising from the web pages you visit like Adblock. In technical terms, AdSweep is a user javascript that defines CSS rules based on the web site you are visiting to hide elements of the page that show advertisements." If you are familiar with JavaScript, you can edit the script and add or remove some patterns.

One-Line Google Sitelinks

Google usually displays a list of links below the top search result for navigational queries. "The links shown below some sites in our search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for," explains a help page.

The feature has been updated frequently: it initially included four links, then it started to display the web addresses, the number of sitelinks doubled in 2007 and last year Google added search boxes.

For some queries, Google reverted to the initial compact format and it shows four sitelinks on a single line. What's more interesting is that sitelinks are no longer displayed just for the top search result.



Yahoo and Live Search have a similar feature and they also show the main sections of a Wikipedia article. "One common thread behind the use of sitelinks by all three search engines is that the concept behind providing internal site links to pages on a site that shows up in search results is to improve the searching experience of people looking for information by providing links to pages within a site that searchers likely would want to find," suggests SEO by the Sea. Search engines generate sitelinks based on the navigational links from a site, sitemaps, traffic data and other sources.

Gmail Search Autocomplete

Gmail added yet another Labs feature, this time related to searching. If you enable "Search Autocomplete", Gmail will try to finish your query using names and email addresses from your contact list, built-in Gmail sections like "starred messages" and more advanced searches like "has photos" or "unread messages".

The new feature is especially useful if your search includes advanced operators like to: or from: because it's easier to enter the sender or the recipient.


Since Gmail doesn't show in the list of suggestions previous queries or common patterns from your messages, the feature has a limited use. You could get similar suggestions by typing names in the Gmail chat box and clicking on "View recent conversations".

Some other search-related Labs feature you should enable: Quick Links, which lets you bookmark Gmail pages, including frequent searches, Go to label, that autocompletes the name of a Gmail label, and Multiple Inboxes, which allows you to create a dashboard from different Gmail views.

Another quick way to view your contacts is to use the standalone page for Google Contacts available at google.com/contacts or google.com/contacts/a/domain.com. According to the Apps Update blog, "the new standalone contact manager allows you to manage your contacts within Google Apps without enabling Gmail". You can also use it with a regular Google account that doesn't include access to Gmail.

{ Thanks, Niranjan and Jason Varitek Fan. }

Compare Google Search Suggestions

Google Suggest, the feature that autocompletes a search as you type it, is now available in 155 local Google domains and 51 languages. The suggestions are different depending on the language and location, so I think it's an interesting idea to compare them.

This Google Spreadsheet lets you enter the first characters of a Google search in the first cell and it shows the top suggestions in the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany and Congo. The first row uses standard country codes, while the second row uses 2-letter language codes.

When you open the spreadsheet Google will ask you to create a copy in your account.