Using Google Services on Other Devices besides Android smartphones and tablets

Rounding out this week’s focus on Google, if you are a Google fan but also use an Apple iPad or iPhone, you have a number of great apps direct from Google that you can use to extend your reach within the Google ecosphere. Google isn’t doing much for the Blackberry crowd or Windows tablet and smartphone users, although they will let you set up gmail’s email and contacts along with your Google calendar. And for Blackberry Enterprise Services users, you can’t even do that unless your employer supports that. For everything else, you are limited to using the mobile web browser version of Google’s apps on Blackberries and Windows tablets and smartphones.

But if you have an Android-powered or iOS tablet or smartphone, you’re golden. Google offers a ton of apps, such as (links primarily for iPhone/iPad, get them on Android at the Google Play Store:

• Google Drive for cloud-based file storage and sharing/syncing between your devices
• Google Maps for…maps and turn-by-turn navigation
• Google Hangouts for easy video chatting with other google users – up to 10 at a time
• Google Search for fast searching by typing or speaking search terms
• Google Earth for viewing the world
• a native Gmail app that more closely mimics your native gmail experience
• Chrome for a Google-like web browser experience
• Youtube for watching videos
• Google Plus for g+ users
• Google Play Books and Google Play Music for using their alternative to iBooks and iTunes
• Google Voice for making internet phone calls
• Google Translate for dealing with foreign languages

Of course, for iPad/iPhone users, you can find these apps mostly buried within the App Store where they sit along with a slew of 3rd party apps. One of these 3rd party apps we really like, because it fills a need that Google hasn’t yet given you – dealing with your web albums (both Picasa and Google+). That app is called Web Albums HD for Picasa and Google + by Pixite LLC (just Web Albums for iPhone). It costs a little but is worth it, because it gives you full control over your Google web albums.Get it on the App Store.