Max Edmands

In the last two weeks, I’ve shifted from keeping all my emails, contacts, and calendars on my computer (using Apple’s Mail, Address Book, and iCal) to Google’s well-implemented suite of online applications. I’m pretty satisfied with the results: Now I can get at my important data from any computer I’m using, as long as it’s got an internet connection. This way, I don’t have to lug my 17″ laptop around wherever I go.

I’ve always been a big fan of Google’s products. Even more so than Apple, they seem to really understand the needs of their users. Their interfaces seem to be comfortable for n00bs and experienced users alike. That said, the more I use Google’s apps, the more I want from them that I don’t quite have. Here are some of my biggest gripes so far (blogged in the hopes that they will be fixed someday):

• Address book synchronization: Google just recently updated their Gmail address book, and its helluva awesome to use. It has all the features I’d ever want from an address book save one–I want to be able to (automatically) synchronize my addresses with my home computer, my facebook, my Plaxo, my phone, my iPod, etcetera, so that I only have to worry about adding a contact to my address book once.
• Offline email reading: I really want to be able to access my email from my own computer, even when I am not connected to the internet. Google Reader sort of has something like this going, but it’s not very widely implemented (only on Firefox at the time of this writing). What I would really like to see is some sort of email program (an actual application that can be run on my personal computer without an internet connection) that syncs perfectly with my Gmail, including preserving my labels and whether or not my emails are archived. Seeing this kind of thing for Google Calendar, Google Reader, and all the other Google applications would also make me happy.
• Widespread support of wacky iCal formats in Google Calendar: Right now, I export my Facebook friends’ birthdays using FBcal, which creates a published calendar that can be read by Apple’s iCal, but (apparently) not Google Calendar.
• Del.icio.us linking from Google Reader: Right now, Google Reader (Google’s RSS reader application) has a fun little “share this item” option at the bottom of every blog article you’re reading. Although this strikes me as useful, I’d like it a lot better if I had the option to link this button with my del.icio.us account rather than putting my “shared items” on some random proprietary Google page somewhere. I realize that the chances of this happening are rather limited, only because Yahoo! owns del.icio.us, and Google and Yahoo! are direct competitors. But it would still make me happy.