Android Blog

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and Google Translate Blog.)

Back in August 2008, we launched a Google Translate HTML5 web app for iPhone users. Today, the official Google Translate for iPhone app is available for download from the App Store. The new app has all of the features of the web app, plus some significant new additions designed to improve your overall translation experience.

Speak to translate
The new app accepts voice input for 15 languages, and—just like the web app—you can translate a word or phrase into one of more than 50 languages. For voice input, just press the microphone icon next to the text box and say what you want to translate.

Listen to your translations
You can also listen to your translations spoken out loud in one of 23 different languages. This feature uses the same new speech synthesizer voices as the desktop version of Google Translate we introduced last month.

Full-screen mode
Another feature that might come in handy is the ability to easily enlarge the translated text to full-screen size. This way, it’s much easier to read the text on the screen, or show the translation to the person you are communicating with. Just tap on the zoom icon to quickly zoom in.

And the app also includes all of the major features of the web app, including the ability to view dictionary results for single words, access your starred translations and translation history even when offline, and support romanized text like Pinyin and Romaji.

You can download Google Translate now from the App Store globally. The app is available in all iOS supported languages, but you’ll need an iPhone or iPod touch iOS version 3 or later.

Posted by Wenzhang Zhu, Software Engineer

Google Mobile Blog

As we announced last November, millions of people have downloaded Google Shopper for Android to help them shop on the go. Today, we’re excited to let you know that Google Shopper, our popular Android shopping application, is now available for iPhone as a download in the App Store. Google Shopper turns your iPhone into a shopping assistant, so you can:

• Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews
• Compare prices at online and local stores
• Save and share products for later consideration

Let’s say you’re planning a special meal for Valentine’s Day – but you need a cast-iron skillet to get the recipe just right. With Shopper, finding one is easy enough: just type in “cast iron skillet” or say it using Voice Search. Then, from the results, you can choose a specific product that appeals to you. Alternatively, if you were in the store and wanted to see product reviews, you could also scan the barcode of a particular product.

Once you’ve selected a product result, you can compare prices across web retailers, and even find where you can purchase the item nearby, which is especially useful for those of us who are last-minute shoppers. For some retailers, we also provide inventory information so you can see if a particular store branch has the item in stock, has limited availability, or if the item is out of stock and you should head to a different store.

If you’re not sure about making a purchase or are building out a gift list, you can “star” products for future consideration. You can also share items with friends across your social network to let them know about products you love or great deals you’ve found.

You can download Google Shopper for free in the App Store. Shopper is available for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0+ in English only for the United States and the UK.

We hope you enjoy shopping with Google Shopper!

Posted by Richard Hung, Senior Product Manager, Google Shopper

Google Mobile Blog

We recently released Google Places with Hotpot in Google Maps for Android, and starting now, you can have that same great experience as an iPhone app. We realize the importance of finding places you’ll love while you’re out and about, no matter what mobile device you use. And Places with Hotpot not only helps you find places near where you are, it gives you the best places to go for you by personalizing your search results.

In case you aren’t familiar with Google Places, it lets you quickly search for places nearby and personalizes the results based on places you’ve rated. We get you started with a few popular search categories, but you can also tailor the list by adding your own favorite searches. This makes it fast and easy to find the best places for you with little fuss.

It can be pretty rewarding to discover a new place you love, but we also realize that there are some experiences you just can’t wait to share. So Places makes it super simple to rate a place with your iPhone while you’re there. Just fire up the app and hit “Rate now.” It will use your location to guess your current place and let you post a Hotpot review right from your phone. But it’s not just about getting to say what you think—the more you rate places, the more you’re sharing about your tastes and the more we can give you personally tailored recommendations.

If you want to make things even tastier, just visit google.com/hotpot from your desktop computer. Here you can add friends to the mix and quickly rate all the places you already know. Once you’ve added friends, you’ll find your results seasoned not just with reviews from around the web and recommendations based on your own personal taste, but also with your friends’ opinions too.

Get the Places app on your iPhone now by searching for Google Places in the App Store or going here.

This first version of Places is available for all iOS devices in English only. However, expect more features and improvements to roll out soon, including localization in many new languages. We’re hard at work to make Places with Hotpot more and more delicious.

Posted by Greg Blevins, Software Engineer, Google Hotpot team

Google Mobile Blog

Alien Challenge iPhone App (looks a lot like Google Android logo)


Image by Photo Giddy
Read the story at www.iPhone Savior.com

www.iphonesavior.com/2009/12/is-that-the-google-android-l…

Google Android Giveaway


Image by Danny Choo
The other special thing about the Android mascots is that they are made by Good Smile Company and not for sale anywhere ^o^
Made in the same place where my grandparents were made – but in different factories.

The original article for this images lives at www.dannychoo.com/post/en/25116/Google+Android+Giveaway.html