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gDocs and Apple would taste great together
Merlin Mann | Sep 22 2007
I've become an ardent Google Documents fan over the past few months -- especially as its support for Safari has improved (didn't say perfect; just improved). I use it for collaborating with clients and 43f guest authors, as well as for managing small projects and keeping various small teams organized. Personally, I find it simpler than a wiki and a lot more powerful than using a static .doc. My favorite use right now is to use a single shared document as a common space that 4 or 5 people have access to and that they can use to give each other to-dos, ask questions, etc. I know stuff like Basecamp does this better and certainly with more sophisticated features, but I'm really attracted to the simplicity of the one-document approach -- especially for informal, remote teams. I think my gDocs cincher was the first time that it occurred to me to see if I could even look at my documents on my iPhone; I was gob-smacked to see that it actually worked. Obviously it's not optimal for doing lots of editing, but you can see and perfunctorily edit your documents without a laptop, and that's just pretty mind-blowing to me. As I'm wont to blather on about on MacBreak Weekly, I just can't rid myself of the suspicion that Apple and Google will eventually formalize a relationship around the suite of Google tools and the iPhone. It just seems like such a great fit -- especially if they can work up some kind of conduit for .Mac syncing that lets you keep everything humming along without manual updating. The idea of combining iPhone portability and style with Google ubiquity and power could pose a small but fascinating challenge to conventional big business apps. Finally, the thing that got me thinking about all this in the first place this morning is this adorable video explaining how gDocs works (thanks, Mike). As far as I'm concerned, there's just not enough use of string in modern demonstration videos. 13 Comments
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.mac to gDocsSubmitted by lonelysandwich on September 22, 2007 - 11:43am.
i just re-upped the 108.20 USD for the 5th time for my yet-to-appreciate .mac account. at this point, i consider it an investment in what will eventually turn into something. and it becomes clearer that the something it'll eventually turn into will feel a lot like gDocs. here's to a happy marriage of Google's subsidized and Apple's subscription-based central storage. long may they live in ubiquitous connectivity! may all my 108.20s build a vast and unfailing hard drive, where the world can come together as one and peek at my crap! » POSTED IN:
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