Google Optimises Mobile App for iPad

Google has revealed that its Google Mobile App for the iPad, has been formally approved by Apple’s App Store, after the tablet device has sold more than 500,000 units since going on sale 3 April.

This “iPad-friendly version” of Google Mobile App displays content on the iPad’s screen without cutting off or chopping up the content rendered there. The app features the same perks in the Google Mobile App for iPhone, such as search by voice and My Location.

Google software engineer Alastair Tse said he and his team are working on improving Google Mobile App for iPad to better take advantage of iPad’s features, although he declined to provide specifics.

Google’s latest iPad app comes after Google 2 April retooled Gmail to work properly on the iPad for its widely anticipated launch.

This flavour of Gmail leverages an experimental user interface built on the HTML5-based Gmail for mobile web app the company launched last April for the iPhone and Android devices.

Gmail on iPad is faster, but it also looks different from Gmail on the desktop or iPhone, as you’d expect. The iPad presents a larger surface on which to work; Gmail and Google Mobile App were redesigned to accommodate this larger palette.

Meanwhile, Google is the default search engine for iPad, and YouTube and Google Maps provide video content and high-resolution satellite and Street View imagery, respectively.

So far, Google, which experienced some bumps in the road getting Google Latitude and Google Voice onto the iPhone, seems to have acclimated well to Apple’s stringent App Store requirements.

It will be interesting to see how this holds up, and even more interesting to watch if and when Google releases its own Android-based tablet and how that will differ from users’ iPad experience.