Todays post is a 2009 midyear round up of the status of the Google Mobile applications: Latitude, Voice, Docs, Mail, Maps and Reader. My focus is on the iPhone mobile platform.

• Google Latitude

  Google Latitude is their location and status message product. The application up until now has been available on other phone platforms such as Android, but lacking on iPhone.

  In the mean time, iPhone users have had to look elsewhere. There are other similar products that perform locational “check-ins” and integrate with services such as Twitter. Brightkite is an example of a well written locational application.

  Google had actually written a Latitude application for iPhone, but it was rejected. Apple were concerned that it was too similar to the Maps app shipped with iPhone.

  Google decided to go ahead and rewrite Latitude as a webapp for the iPhone. It was announced late July 2009, and can be accessed from the Google mobile home page or by using the Google Mobile application.

• Google Voice

  The recent controversy with the rejected Google Voice application hangs in the air. This week David Pogue (via Mashable) blogged about Google rewriting their rejected application as a webapp, much the same as Latitude now runs.

  If they get this stood up, this will be the next step in the move from the old school to the new, being VOIP. With Skype possibly on the way out by 2010, Google may fill the void – albeit with many more functions than a simple VOIP application.

  For the time being, there is no iPhone capability for Google Voice.

• Google Docs

  Google docs is currently accessible on the iPhone from Google as a mobile web application.

  The current limitation with the mobile web application is that it is view only, and does not allow sharing of your documents. To perform all the functions you need to use a full browser

• Google Mail

  The iPhone has you covered when it comes to mail. You can either use the built in email application to access Gmail via IMAP, or access the mobile web Gmail. The mobile web Gmail is full featured, and makes use of iPhone/AJAX specific web features to give you an almost dedicated app like experience.

  On the other hand, the benefit of using the built in Mail is offline reading/composing and excellent integration the the iPhone V3 cut/copy/paste features; even for photos and voice memos.

• Google Maps

  Google maps is one of the core applications of the iPhone and iPod line. It comes pre-installed from Apple. The quality of this application has increased with the current V3 firmware providing outstanding features.

• Google Reader

  There is no native application for Google reader. But don’t let this stop you. A couple of avenues are available.

  The mobile web application for reader is as mature as Google’s mobile Gmail. It allows you to perform almost all the features that the full web based reader does, and it makes use of the iPhone safari features.

  If you want something Application based – a new alternative is emerging. The NetNewsWire/FeedDaemon product suite is an RSS reader from NewsGator for the Mac/Windows platforms, respectively. They have a dedicated iPhone application that syncs with the desktop products. NewsGator recently announced that their Beta desktop products now sync with Google Reader, and that an update to their iPhone app is on the way. This solution will allow synchronisation of RSS feeds and unread item status across your Desktop and Google reader, but the dedicated iPhone app is not out yet. You can watch for their iPhone announcement from @newsgator on Twitter, or at their blog.

You can download the Google Mobile application from the iTunes store.

“The agreement means Yellow™ advertisers can now potentially be found by more customers than ever before. They can be found in our print and online directories, over the phone, in a growing range of satellite navigation devices, on mobile phones, on search engines and on online mapping sites, which now includes the popular Google Maps”

Currently Google Maps in Australia uses the True Local business listings. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this, it misses out on the businesses who traditionally list on Yellow Pages.

In Australia it is considered a must to list your business using Yellow Pages since these are printed yearly and a copy delivered to every household (being regionally specific). The businesses who already list will automatically gain the benefit and not be charged any additional fees to appear on Google maps. With the rise of mobile devices using Google maps, such as the iPhone, the end user and the business both benefit from on the spot, realtime, and often locational based business searches.

The use of the business listings commences in the first Quarter of 2009.

In comparison, Windows live (aka hotmail) currently offers 5GB when you login into their product.

The counter on the gmail login page shows Over 7005.197177 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message. Well they are right there….. I don’t need to delete anything at this time – and probably never will.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders what it means to have your entire archive of communications stored in one place. Who can really access that 7 GigaBytes of mail, on US based servers in the current world climate.

The geek in me says “Its not really 7GB yet! GibiBytes people – Base-2!!!”

read more | digg story

Reading about gmail on digg led me to an un-dug comment (I gave him a thumbs up!) saying that for IMAP to appear your language in gmail had to be set to ‘English (US)’. So I gave it a try, as I had mine on ‘English (UK)’ for the spelling. I logged into gmail, went to my ‘General’ settings and changed the language to ‘English (US)’, and saved the settings.

Lo – under settings, the IMAP option was now enabled!

As a test, I thought I would set my language settings back to ‘English (UK)’ and see what happens. Would you belive it turns it back off again.

Re-activating IMAP is as simple as using the US variation of the English language again.

I’m not the first to notice this though.

I’m not sure if this activates or deactivates the actual IMAP on your account, but it certainly makes the settings show or hide it. I wonder why Google thinks that only US speaking people should have access to IMAP. All the gmail users in the UK or Australia – take note if you want IMAP! With 5GB available now, it is even better.

Today I looked and – USD$725.65 PER SHARE!. They have gone up 2% in one day. That gives Google a market capitalisation of 226.5 BILLION US Dollars. Microsoft still holds the lead (in the Tech Sector) on USD$343.63B.

Where will this madness stop? Will it be when we see economic collapse of the Western countries as we know them? Will it be 2012? There are changes afoot for sure.

In comparison, Windows live (aka hotmail) offers 1GB to their users, albeit in the form of a “Skydrive“. Skydrive is an online storage space.

Correction: Thanks to Taylor’s comment, I do note that as a Windows live user my inbox shows 5GB of space available. Methinks Microsoft are playing catchup! Too little too late? We shall see, as both services are still the most popular (where are you yahoo!)

As detailed in the comments, Microsoft were actually offering Windows Live users more than Gmail sometime over 2 months ago. As I use Gmail primarily it slipped by my radar.

As I use both, I may review them in detail sometime.