Google infiltrates iOS - Googlifying your iPhone/iPad/iPod

We get a lot of requests from novice and veteran Google users alike who want to better integrate the Google experience into their iOS devices. Not all users of Google's massive ecosystem are Android users which makes the Google-on-iOS combination quite appealing if you enjoy Apple's hardware, customer service, and general usability.

If you use an iOS device, replacing Apple's default apps with Google alternatives is now a seamless experience, especially compared to the painful past. It's very easy to do, and if done properly, you'll probably never need to open the default Apple apps ever again. Begin by downloading the Google apps you'll need to begin the 'Google-fication' of your iOS device. Here's a list of some of the most popular ones.

These are just a handful of the many Google apps that can replace most, if not all, of Apple's default apps. Although Apple does not allow you to pick a default app for a specific service, Google has implemented a clever workaround for this: all of Google's apps (and even many third party apps) have an "open in" option that gives you the ability to open links in the intended Google app. For example, this will allow you to open links in Chrome, videos in YouTube, and addresses in Google Maps.

The Google Hangouts setting here shows a list of existing Google apps that links will direct to.

You'll find that nearly all of Google's apps have this setting to some extent, enabling you to stay fully within the Google world. Although this setting allows fluidity between Google apps, you still can't change things like your default email or calendar app, which is an understandable compromise if you fully buy into the plethora of Google's ecosystem.

Google's apps weren't always the best on iOS as they weren't as polished as Apple's were, but in our experience, this has changed and they now far outstrip Apple's default offerings. Google Maps and the Drive suite of apps (Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides) are both great examples of how far Google has come on the iOS platform. Google Maps offers better driving directions than Apple Maps, as well as cycling and transit directions, and navigation inside buildings where supported. Furthermore, Drive is much easier to use for storage than iCloud and offers you access to all of your files without configuring and searching through unnecessary settings. And as you'd expect, Drive automatically opens any files in the appropriate Google app, ignoring Apple's defaults entirely.

With all these Google Apps taking over iOS defaults, there are still a few small drawbacks. Google tends to update its iOS apps more slowly than its Android counterparts. Unless you really need to have the latest updates, this isn't really problematic, but it does mean they won't integrate with the latest iOS features immediately. For example, many Google apps don't have Notification Center support, and none of them have Force Touch support yet. If these aren't of concern to you, then your Google experience on iOS can be near-perfect. 

If you're faithful to iOS, but still want or need to indulge in Google's apps for personal or work reasons, hopefully you now see that Google and iOS can harmoniously coexist. Sometimes, you can have the best of both worlds! Check out this article from LifeHacker to learn about more Google apps and their integration to iOS.

Introducing the new Google bar and restoring Single Sign On (SSO) for Marketplace Apps

Google Apps is a constantly-evolving suite of the best web applications for businesses. As part of their quest to always make everything just a little bit better, Google recently rolled out a new navigation option that replaces the old Google bar.

The new Google bar.

The new app launcher replaces the traditional black navigation bar with a simple grid that is designed to keep the experience consistent across Android, Chrome OS, and the web. The complaint we've heard is that you now need at least one extra click and sometimes two in order to get to services that you used to be able to get to very quickly. As well, all your Google Apps Marketplace applications are hidden under the grey "More" link. We've had multiple customers contact us saying the links have simply disappeared, because it's not immediately obvious where they might be.

Not a big fan of the new navigation system? Not to worry! There is a way to avoid all the hunting, and it involves taking advantage of the excellent Bookmark Bar in the Chrome web browser. If you're using Chrome, press Ctrl+Shift+B (on Windows and Chrome OS) or ⌘-Shift-B (on a Mac) to show or hide the bar; you'll see it appear or disappear beneath the address bar if you've done it right. To add a bookmark to this bar, follow the instructions below (these show you how to add a single sign-on bookmark for Solve360):

1. Click the Chrome menu button () on the browser toolbar.
2. Select Bookmarks.
3. Select Bookmark manager. You can also get to the Bookmark manager by using the hotkey Ctrl+Shift+O (on Windows and Chrome OS) or ⌘-Shift-O (on a Mac).
4. Right-click on Bookmark bar in the left-hand navigation pane and click Add page....
   
5. Name it Solve360 and paste this URL: https://secure.solve360.com/marketplace/?domain=yourdomain.com (where yourdomain.com is replaced with your primary domain name).
   
6. Press Enter. You're done!

Now you'll have one-click access to Solve360 from anywhere in your browser, not just from your inbox. You can also hold down Shift while you click the bookmark to open it in a new window, and Ctrl+Click or click with your middle mouse button to open it in a new tab.

You can configure the same functionality for other services, such as FreshBooks (https://secure.freshbooks.com/google.php?domain=yourdomain.com) and Xero (https://login.xero.com/Signin/SignInWithGoogle?domain=yourdomain.com).

All you need is the URL that the service redirects to as soon as you click a link. Need help finding out exactly what that is? Contact us and we can do all the heavy lifting for you!

Chrome web browser print preview problem, and why you need .NET Framework

Google’s Chrome is now the most popular Web browser worldwide, surpassing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the first time in May 2012 according to StatCounter.

We’ve run into an issue several times wherein a user will attempt to print a web page or document using Chrome’s default print preview rather than the standard Windows print preview screen, but upon actually sending the job to the printer it simply vanishes. Chrome thinks it’s printed the job and so keeps on going but the job is never actually delivered to the printer. Another variation of this problem is one where the user will try to print a document or web page but Chrome simply doesn’t load the print preview properly and the job can’t be sent to print at all.

Keep in mind that this issue only applies to systems running Windows XP.  Newer machines running Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not experience this problem.

There’s a simple fix for this issue and it comes in the form of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. Downloading and installing the latest version is always recommended anyway (just like Windows Updates!), but for systems that are running outdated versions of .NET (older than 3.5), this issue will nearly always crop up. The most up-to-date version Microsoft has published is .NET Framework 4.5, but the issue is resolved with version 3.5. Downloading these, or newer, versions of the .NET Framework will resolve the printing issues, and users should be able to print from Chrome as they would from any other web browser.

Now that you've got Chrome working properly, the next step might be taking a moment to think about retiring Internet Explorer...