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Google Wave development discontinued, Waveboard sinks
After much public and private debate over its actual utility, Google Wave, as you've probably already heard, is dead. Google posted a notice yesterday announcing that, due to a lack of public acceptance for the realtime collaboration platform, they are halting development. "We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product," states Google, "but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects." Very few people are surprised by this news, and Wave has been roundly criticized for being poorly executed. Many (including myself), however, are disappointed. One Mac developer, in particular, is saddened by this development. Dirk Holtwick, author of a Wave client called Waveboard, got the news while on holiday this week. It goes without saying that a developer with commercial applications for Mac, iPhone and iPad which rely on Wave is disappointed by this announcement. Holwick shared with TUAW his own criticism of the "buggy first experience" that Wave provided most users, but also his admiration for technology that was "great, and ahead of its time." Read on for more.
The week in TUAW
Need a Mac or iPhone developer? TUAW job boards are here! Notice anything new at TUAW? We've had our job boards up for a week now, making sure all the tape would stick when new jobs were posted, and I'm proud to say that the doors are wide open for job... TUAW Video: a tour of Freeverse Welcome to the first of what we hope will be many, many TUAW Videos to come. We've done lots of video on TUAW, from Macworld Expo coverage to WWDC interviews to fart apps and more. This time we're... Hands-on with the Magic Mouse Well, I got my Magic Mouse a few days ago, and I've been using it for my everyday tasks for a few days (and I'm still using it), and here are my impressions. Packaging: This packaging is... Also of interest: TUAW Review: Kanex HDMI + audio adapter works fine but costs extra TUAW Gift Guides: Gifts for tech-savvy women Waveboard on the iPhone, Google Wave access slightly better than Mobile Safari
Waveboard on the iPhone, Google Wave access slightly better than Mobile Safari
If you're lucky enough to have a Google Wave account, you may be familiar with Waveboard. I started out using Wave via a Fluid SSB, running Wave Growl for Growl notifications and Dock badges. Then I found Waveboard, and it made things smooth enough that I haven't looked at Wave any other way since. So, obviously, I'd been anticipating the iPhone version of Waveboard. It's here, and it's, well, moderately interesting. The desktop app is essentially a Single Site Browser, like a Fluid app, but it adds handy, Mac-like keyboard shortcuts, Growl notifications, Dock and Menubar notifications, etc. The iPhone app is the same, a webkit browser showing what Google already provides, but there just wasn't as much potential integration to take advantage of on the iPhone. They took advantage of the shake gesture to reload or log out. Websites can be opened in the same browser or sent to Safari. Landscape mode is supported. And you can kind of get push notifications, by using Prowl (which Aron has mentioned before). Setup instructions are available on the Waveboard blog. That's about it, for now. Google hasn't offered an API, which seriously hampers a developer's ability to do cool things. More features are reportedly in the works, so we'll see if it turns into a truly useful counterpart to its desktop cousin over time. Waveboard for iPhone is available on the App Store iTunes link for $0.99US. Under a buck, and it might be worth a look for avid Wavers (which I would be, if enough of my clients and cohorts had accounts to make it truly useful). [via TechCrunch]
