With this week ’s quiet annunciation thatiGoogle will be retired next year , one matter has become clear : How Google perceive its products and how I use them are sometimes two entirely unlike thing .
For Google , it ’s clear that iGoogle — a individualized dashboard , and confessedly a end of the years of Internet portal vein — is little more than an app manner of speaking system , one that ’s been give the sack over clock time by the rise of theChrome Web Storefor screen background computers and theGoogle Playservice for mobile user .
For me , however , iGoogle was something unlike : My brain , at a coup d’oeil .
iGoogle lets a user take in many types of information at once.
iGoogle lets a user take in many types of entropy at once .
Online default
Over the days , I ’ve allow Google become the default provider in just about every domain of my online living : I started with Gmail presently after it launched in 2004 , moved on to composing my stories in Google Docs , kept my schedule in Google Calendar , stayed up - to - date with the news program in Google Reader ’s RSS feed , and second message with myMacworldcolleagues in Google Chat . I even cause my hand on afirst - generation beta - testing Chromebooka couple of long time back , and yes , I utilise the Chrome internet browser when I ’m work on the Mac — though not , admittedly , when I ’m on iOS : On that platform , it is more special than the iPhone and iPad ’s aboriginal Safari web internet browser .
In that linguistic context , iGoogle was more than an app - delivery system : It was my one - stop shop for doing all those thing — and checking the weather condition , to boot — without having to have a million internet browser lozenge undecided : Everything at a single glance . That capability made my digital living a bit more efficient , a little less unrestrained , and solidified my status as a Google stalwart : It was just so easy to use its services when everything integrated into a single location .
And now it ’s going away . ( The background edition close in November 2013 ; the mobile version at the end of this month . ) Why ?
Netvibes offers an elegant alternative when iGoogle retires.
Google was somewhat cryptic on that front , suggesting mostlythat the service ’s time had give — peradventure due to tighten economic consumption — and hinting at its prospect of iGoogle an an app - speech service instead of a genius - personal organizer . “ We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today ’s WWW and mobile apps would put individualize , real - sentence information at your fingertips , ” the troupe said in a blog Emily Post . “ With modern apps that run on platforms likeChromeandAndroid , the pauperism for iGoogle has erode over time , so we ’ll be winding it down . ”
That iGoogle - as - app - deliverance model makes sense : Cruise through the service’sAdd Gadgetsdirectory , and it ’s leisurely to see a harbinger to what the Chrome Web Store has become . gizmo developer — and widget user — mostly grew up and moved to wandering platforms .
It ’s also easy to see another way the rise of nomadic computing platforms like iOS and Android have had a role in this phylogenesis : They ’ve pushed users back toward being single - taskers . It ’s well-heeled enough to clutter the desktop of a estimator with a web browser , an email customer , and a 12 other covering running at the same metre — but when you ’re on the iPad , say , and you ’re looking at the Safari web web browser , you ’re only await at the Safari web browser . If you ’re looking at your mail , you ’re looking at your ring armour . iOS has become more nimble over the years , and it remains genuine that peregrine enthusiasts have come to expect their phones and tablet to do nigh everything , but not everythingat once .
So what now?
There are , of course of instruction , still WWW - based , thingmajig - oriented , personal dashboard services out there when iGoogle falls by the wayside .
Netvibes offers an graceful option when iGoogle hit the hay .
My Yahoo!is still kicking , despite the bother of its parent company , as isMy MSN . And there are other , self-governing services that that might do in a pinch : Among these , Netvibesis the most bright , being both easy on the eye and relatively straightforward to customize with the information and services you might desire , whileInbox.comis a close second . Other services , likeProtopageandWebwagfeel clumsier and harder to customize than their contender .
But for my use , none of those services offers the tight integration with Google that was the foundation of my iGoogle usage . They might offer Gmail admission , but widgets for Google Reader , Google Docs , and Google Calendar are for the most part absent . If I desire to rebuild the at - a - coup d’oeil functionality that iGoogle has apply me , I might have to agitate away from using Google ’s many useful services .
Or I might just take to leave a dozen browser app tabs open and skip around them while working during the day . Sure , that ’s the agency a lot of masses figure out , but it ’s still an unpleasant prognosis . Without iGoogle , it seems , my brain might never again be the same .
[ Joel Mathis is remain - at - home dad and Macworld contributor . He lives in Philadelphia . ]
