It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I’m not a huge Google fan. I’ve railed against their policies, tactics, AdSense, book scanning and dozens of other things the company has done. But, I rely on Google on a daily basis. Not because I want to, but because there is no better option. On a daily basis, I use the following apps:

  • Gmail
  • Gmail mobile
  • Google Maps
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Calendar Sync
  • Google Calendar Mobile
  • Google Docs

Suffice to say that Google keeps me going on a daily basis. When Gmail goes down, I lose it (almost as much as when Twitter goes down, heh), so yeah Google keeps me going, keeps me in business, etc.

But the suite of Google apps, while powerful, simply suck when used in tandem. Why, for example:

  • Can’t I get notifications of new emails when I’m in Google Calendar?
  • Can’t I get reminders of upcoming appointments when in Gmail?
  • Can’t I favourite/bookmark files (or have RECENT FILES) easily accessible from any app?
  • Aren’t my Google Reader notifications easily visible from anywhere?
  • Can’t I easily include files from Google docs as attachments in emails?
  • … and oh, oh so many more (don’t even get me started on creating calendar items/todos from emails)…

I mean, seriously, yay  (</sarcasm>)that we can FINALLY one-click access any app in the suite (well, most apps in the suite)… but, Google, that’s not enough.

And it’s certainly not enough for me to keep paying for this “suite” of applications.

Google, if you want me to pay,  fix the stuff above.

In order to help Google along, and to hopefully generate some brainstorming on this subject, I’ve done up a quick mockup, borrowing heavily from Facebook‘s footer menu (which I use daily… in fact, it’s the only reason I use most areas of Facebook, because they’re so easily accessible).

And here it is… (click for fullsize version)

google

Something like this would:

  • allow search from right within any app (which, since I’ve switched to Bing, would mean I’d use Google Search  more often since it was so easy)
  • lists several easy to access apps that I use on a regular basis, has favourite files or recent files
  • notify you of unread emails (and preview them for easy processing such as deleting, marking as read, moving to folders, etc without leaving whatever app you were in)
  • notify you (and allow you to to mark as read) items in Google Reader
  • notify you of upcoming appointments
  • allow you to use Google Chat from anywhere and get those notifications as well (though personally I’d probably turn those notifications off so I was more productive)… this would also save many of those “awww crap, I was talking to someone but clicked on Google Docs and now they’re gone” from Gmail’s chat UI.

Granted, I built this for me, so others might have other things they want. And, obviously if an appointment was upcoming there should be an alert of some kind that was a bit more intrusive (potentially making the window flash in the toolbar, generating a sound, having a toast, whatever).

Anyways, this seemed so obvious to me that I had to check with several friends to make sure this didn’t exist.

In addition, this kind of tie-in would  make other features, such as the ability to attach Google Docs directly into Gmail emails easy, would hold your Google Profile information and would presumably allow for things like integration to Facebook and so forth. If this was built as a piece of downloadable software, it would also give Google  huge data on your true browsing habits, the ability to index Facebook pages just for you, etc.

Dunno, maybe I’m off my rocker, maybe this does exist, but for me… I’d pay for this.

3A00DD