Google Not Building Additional Windows 8, WP8 Apps For Now
Google currently has no plans to develop apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
Looking for an app to check your Gmail account or access Google Drive from your new Windows PC or Windows Phone 8 device? Look no further, as Google will likely not churn out dedicated apps for its services on those two platforms for some time to come due to a perceived lack of interest.
"We have no plans to build out Windows apps," said Clay Bavor, product management director at Google Apps, in an interview with v3. "We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8."
Currently the only two official Google apps offered in the Windows Store is Google Chrome and Google Search. This is likely due to Google wanting to steer users away from Microsoft's own Bing and Internet Explorer 10 which comes packed in the new Windows Modern UI overlay. All other Google services can be accessed the traditional way, or through third-party apps.
During the interview Bavor stressed that there are no plans to bring Gmail and Google Drive to the new Microsoft platforms. Still, if there's enough interest, Bavor said that Google will be willing to adapt. For now, Android and iOS are taking the "brunt" of the company's focus, and that will likely intensify in 2013.
"In 2012 we've laid some of the ground work and really improved the experience of our core apps on mobile devices," he said. "We really see these as the first versions of our mobile experience, though, so we will continue to make big investments in mobile in 2013 with the goal of having beautiful mobile apps."
Google is partially focused on its mobile offerings because the enterprise sector is slowly shifting into the cloud and utilizing multiple devices that access cloud-based data. Executives and staff are turning to laptops, tablets and smartphones in addition to their desktops to remotely access spreadsheets, edit documents and more.
The only way to address this multi-device user is to establish a consistent cloud architecture that delivers data to all devices and keeps the apps up-to-date. But as it stands now, the majority of the businesses will not have upgraded to Windows 8 in 2013 due to the new interface, and the new platform isn't exactly selling like iPads in the consumer sector.
To read the full interview, head here.
Do you have dedicated GMail and Google Maps apps on your Windows 7 computer?
Because if you are coming from the Android ecosystem it makes migration easier.
Now that most of that stuff isn't available through apps, I'm less inclined to get a Lumia 920.
That and I'll lose all of my Google app Purchases.
I totally agree, why do we need those apps when nobody else is using Windows based phones beside your?
Do you have dedicated GMail and Google Maps apps on your Windows 7 computer?
And whoever said they'd lose their google apps purchases, that's a given considering those apps won't run on a windows OS.
Also there's no reason to complain when you can use a web version which we've probably have been using long before dedicated apps.
Gmail may be tops right now, but if Google decides to stop innovating to spite Microsoft they risk being surpassed by a company who is truly trying to "Do no evil" and deliver a quality product to their users. I am extremely annoyed by the lack of a Gmail client and this shows a piss poor attitude similar to the one Apple shows in the games they play with the maps app and patent lawsuits. I expect more of Google but perhaps I shouldn't.
If W8/WP8 devices take off, I'm sure Google will make apps for them, but at this point they could make a better case developing apps for BlackBerry.
It's like none of you realize that moving platforms is a significant move?
Moving to any platform, I would have to leave my hundreds of app purchases, movies etc behind..
Migration would be easier if they ported the Movies and Gmail apps over at least, but why would Google help out a competitor?
Don't worry about it, it's Microsoft PR social bots doing their rounds. Too bad they can't do anything about dismal sales and low market share.
It isn't a game. How dare Google not produce products for a platform they don't see any demand for yet! Really?
>Android/iOS are what people use to play, Windows is what people use to get stuff done.
No, Windows are what people use who are either too young or too newbie to understand "vendor lock-in", or something they're resigned to being stuck with for the time being. You can "get stuff done" with Android, iOS, OS X, Linux, BSD and Windows. At this stage of the game, they're all full-featured.
>Windows drives the world still,
Windows doesn't "drive the world"... not in servers, not in supercomputers, not in embedded, not in mobile, not in stock exchanges, etc. It has a monopoly on the desktop courtesy of being first and this monopoly produces vendor lock-in which leads many people to either need it or think they need it. This is why South Korea is stuck using ancient buggy versions of Internet Explorer and the security nightmare ActiveX for all of its financial transactions... it was mandated at one point and then vendor lock-in occurred and now they're stuck with it. Even with no longer requiring it, the existing user base creates vendor lock-in and like gravitational pull it becomes hard to escape (those not willing to move away hold the rest back). One independent presidential candidate has even made it a plank in his platform to get rid of ActiveX! Would you say ActiveX is "driving" South Korea? Other than adding the word "crazy", no. The big innovations today are revolving around virtualization, the cloud, and big data, and Windows isn't leading/driving in any of those areas. In fact, in regards to big data, every major product in the category today is open source!
>the others are able to exist because of it.
I assure you neither iOS nor Android need Windows to exist. Heck, neither Apple nor Google run Windows on their general PCs (one guess as to what Apple runs and Google uses a modified version of Ubuntu).
>Gmail may be tops right now, but if Google decides to stop innovating to spite Microsoft
Releasing a Windows 8 app hardly qualifies as "innovating". Google is working on driverless cars... now THAT'S innovating!
> they risk being surpassed by a company who is truly trying to "Do no evil" and deliver a quality
>product to their users.
No one is going to surpass Google in search or advertising anytime soon, and if they do, it'll have nothing to do with Windows 8 email apps. Not supporting Metro is hardly "doing evil". MS' locking Metro apps into the Windows Store - that's another story.
> I am extremely annoyed by the lack of a Gmail client
Again... being locked into the Windows Store doesn't bother you at all, but the lack of Gmail client is what has you annoyed about Windows 8? Running software like your PC is one giant phone doesn't bother you either?
>and this shows a piss poor attitude similar to the one Apple shows in the games they play with the
>maps app and patent lawsuits. I expect more of Google but perhaps I shouldn't.
OK if Google not releasing a Gmail client for Windows 8 and Windows 8 phone is a piss poor attitude, please tell me how you view Microsoft not releasing Office or Internet Explorer or Visual Studio or Access for Linux using the exact same criteria you're using to judge Google. I await the undoubtedly interesting results of this thought experiment, although let's just say I doubt the results will surprise me much.
Google's lack of "dedicated apps" hinders nothing on my agenda. Chrome still runs and that's fine by me. It's a good back up browser as IE10 is just as amazing as the OS it comes packaged with.
Overall, for $40, if you're not buying Windows 8, I believe you'll end up regretting not buying it while it was this cheap. As for this "Windows Store" garbage I keep hearing... You're honestly retarded if this is what you believe to be the "major evil" Microsoft is committing.
I honestly wish people here would stop reading reviews from idiots and just try the damned thing yourself.
Removing the start menu goes beyond personal taste, the start menu is an functionality that serves purpose in the generel computing world which is why many people disliked the idea that ms removed the start menu and as good as some 3rd party programs are at trying oo replicate the start menu like classic shell it's not as good as having the actual start menu itself that's native to the OS.
Astroturf harder. Microsoft is doing everything they can to drag their existing Windows user base into their failed mobile ecosystem, and now it's backfiring, with abysmal sales of everything Windows branded. Enjoy your smartphone user interface along with less than 2% of PC users - I'm skipping this one, even if they start giving it away for free.
Windows 7 until 2020 (or until Microsoft comes to their senses)
Anyone who says win8 is amazing, is either working for MS or just has no idea how real people use PC's. This OS will slow down anyone who used any previous OS and you'll never get as fast as you were using the OLD OS (7 or xp). Win8 has no place on a PC. The amount of productivity lost to this OS per company will be huge if any IT dept is dumb enough to roll this out (which should get you fired immediately for even suggesting it - this is Vista again people!). Better yet, just keep going MS, I'm hoping google will kill your OS next year or two with Chrome/webgl etc. Once DirectX is dead, windows has no use for me. I'm only on this OS because of IT and gaming at home. Heck you could bring back XP with DX12 and I'd be a lot happier than even win7. I'd give $150 for that