Over the last couple days I have been playing with some of the web apps I use from time to time. I wanted to focus on just Google Apps in this post as it can get confusing going to dozens of web sites with all their apps. The results varied from a crashing Safari to just a brilliant experience. My first reaction was to blame Google because they way the error looked, but after further testing, I blame Apple. There was no Adobe flash to blame and the iPhone handles the site just fine so only thing left is to say the issue is on Apple.
Google Wave
This was almost a pointless effort. Google warns you upon opening that this browser is not supported proceed at your own peril. That could not have been more accourate because Google Wave crashed Safari on the iPad. Despite Safari being a browser that is supposed to support Google Wave the iPad version crashed.
Shocked I reverted back to the iPhone because I know this has worked in the past. Guess what, it still works today. How can Safari on the iPad crash with Google Wave while Safari on the iPhone function properly?
Google Reader
Much like Google Wave my high hopes for pushing through my RSS feeds got dashed quickly. While you can use the mobile reader, both the desktop and play views are so inefficient on the iPad they might as well be broken. I know Net Newswire has their iPad application but at $10 I am not interested, plus I got burned bad when they switched to google reader so I am still on the fence with them.
GMail
The darkness of Google Wave and Google Reader quickly faded into the background when you look at how simple, clean, and functional GMail looks on the iPad. Either you love GMail or you hate it for me I like the threaded conversations, Labels, and endless inbox of GMail. GMail on the iPad functions just as I would want a web application to work on the iPad.
Google Docs
Greatness did not end with GMail. Google Docs was as functional as the desktop version. Sadly Google Docs in general is not as good as Microsoft Office online in my opinion but it worked well and provides the perfect alternative to buying Pages, Numbers, or Keynote for the iPad. That is a $30 savings by using Google Docs
Picasa Web Albums
I recently picked up an Eye-Fi Explorer|X2 8GB+WiFi SD card for my Nikon D5000 Digiatl SLR. I am hoping this will unchain our photo library from iPhoto and push it to Picasa, Flickr, and/or Facebook.
