Google or Yahoo!?
I can never decide which email/calendar/RSS service to rely on. I'm in between a constant battle between Google and Yahoo! and I can't decide who to side with. Both have some great features that I really enjoy, and both are unique in ways that make some of their features unmissable.
Google has been my long-time favorite. They've got an awesome service that's fast, reliable, and aesthetically pleasing. Now that I have an iPhone, though, I rely heavily on integration with that. Google does a pretty good job of doing this, though. iTunes easily syncs calendar entries with Outlook and Google has a great Calendar Sync tool that then syncs Outlook's calendar to my Google Calendar. Cool! Their email works quite well on the iPhone, too, but it's missing the ability to push new messages to the device (instead of it polling the server every hour or so). I really like push email.
Yahoo! was probably the first free email service that I used after I ditched AOL and my other ISP-hosted email years and years ago. Their service has always been pretty rock-solid for me but it's also been anything but fast (on multiple, beefy computers) since they released their new webmail interface. Their new webmail looks awesome, sure, but it's littered with ugly graphical ads, and not everything has converted over to this new interface (notably the calendar) even though it debuted over two years ago (and left beta over a year ago). I guess we can't really give Google too much crap for how long their services remain in beta... at least they all look the same! iTunes also has great options to sync with Yahoo! and Yahoo! offers a tool much like Google's Calendar Sync to sync to their online calendar. This bring me to my next issue... their calendar. It's old, it's ugly, it's really dated-looking. Ugh. The mail service they provide does offer email push for the iPhone through a specially-crafted mail server address hosted by Apple. This is awesome!
Both services also offer RSS readers, but Google Reader pretty much wins this one without contest. Yahoo!'s is nice, sure, but it's integrated completely (I think) with their webmail and that makes it incredibly hard to browse through new entries because the scrolling is ridiculously slow.
I find it very hard to decide which to use. I have this problem often and my mother often comments on the fact that I've so far stuck with Gmail for a year or so. I used to switch monthly (or more often), honestly. I like use online email and calendar services a lot and since I use them multiple times a day I felt it best to fully research all of the options available so that I could use the one that suited me best.
It looks like I'm going to stick with Gmail for the time being. There's mixed feelings that I hold about this, though. I'm a big stickler for integration. When I use something for email, I like to use the same system for a calendar (it's easier, you know) and then I like everything else online-related like my blog, primary chat medium, and RSS reader to be through that same company. Google's offerings in all of these fields are far superior to any of the competition that I've seen over the years. Once they offer push email to the iPhone (which is rumored to be happening soon) and offer some sort of native calendar syncing with the iPhone or iTunes (which would be amazingly cool) I will be 100% satisfied with my choice to use Google's services exclusively.
On the subject of integrated services, I'd like to point out that I've already tried and been (so far) unsatisfied with Apple's MobileMe offering. Besides an incredibly slow and buggy web interface, that often "reloads" instead of sending a message when you click send so you lose what you typed, there's been multiple prolonged outages and it's expensive. At $99 a year (or ~$50 for an activation code on eBay) it's way more expensive than the free options out there. Don't get me wrong, when it works it's really awesome. Push email (mostly) works great, and the over-the-air syncing with the calendar is the holy grail for me. The wife doesn't understand the reasoning behind wanting to pay for something like this, either, which also makes this a non-viable option.
Hopefully Google will implement push email and some sort of native calendar syncing into the iPhone or iTunes soon. I'd love to be able to be totally happy with the services I use. (This is not a gripe, whiny, or any sort of complaint or hate post, though. I totally understand that it's free and I get-what-I-get because of that. I'm cool with the idea.) Google Android has me worried, though. Now that they have their own mobile operating system and devices running it what's the motivation to add new features to the iPhone, their biggest competition? Android isn't going to be pulling over many iPhone users, I don't think. Their first device is ugly and I think most people are getting the iPhone for the "cool factor" as opposed to the operating system itself. Sure, the iPhone will shed some users for the Android devices but I think that the iPhone will remain the leader for quite some time. This will, theoretically, keep Google interested in the device and encourage them to update and add new features to their existing services that people access through it.
Google has been my long-time favorite. They've got an awesome service that's fast, reliable, and aesthetically pleasing. Now that I have an iPhone, though, I rely heavily on integration with that. Google does a pretty good job of doing this, though. iTunes easily syncs calendar entries with Outlook and Google has a great Calendar Sync tool that then syncs Outlook's calendar to my Google Calendar. Cool! Their email works quite well on the iPhone, too, but it's missing the ability to push new messages to the device (instead of it polling the server every hour or so). I really like push email.
Yahoo! was probably the first free email service that I used after I ditched AOL and my other ISP-hosted email years and years ago. Their service has always been pretty rock-solid for me but it's also been anything but fast (on multiple, beefy computers) since they released their new webmail interface. Their new webmail looks awesome, sure, but it's littered with ugly graphical ads, and not everything has converted over to this new interface (notably the calendar) even though it debuted over two years ago (and left beta over a year ago). I guess we can't really give Google too much crap for how long their services remain in beta... at least they all look the same! iTunes also has great options to sync with Yahoo! and Yahoo! offers a tool much like Google's Calendar Sync to sync to their online calendar. This bring me to my next issue... their calendar. It's old, it's ugly, it's really dated-looking. Ugh. The mail service they provide does offer email push for the iPhone through a specially-crafted mail server address hosted by Apple. This is awesome!
Both services also offer RSS readers, but Google Reader pretty much wins this one without contest. Yahoo!'s is nice, sure, but it's integrated completely (I think) with their webmail and that makes it incredibly hard to browse through new entries because the scrolling is ridiculously slow.
I find it very hard to decide which to use. I have this problem often and my mother often comments on the fact that I've so far stuck with Gmail for a year or so. I used to switch monthly (or more often), honestly. I like use online email and calendar services a lot and since I use them multiple times a day I felt it best to fully research all of the options available so that I could use the one that suited me best.
It looks like I'm going to stick with Gmail for the time being. There's mixed feelings that I hold about this, though. I'm a big stickler for integration. When I use something for email, I like to use the same system for a calendar (it's easier, you know) and then I like everything else online-related like my blog, primary chat medium, and RSS reader to be through that same company. Google's offerings in all of these fields are far superior to any of the competition that I've seen over the years. Once they offer push email to the iPhone (which is rumored to be happening soon) and offer some sort of native calendar syncing with the iPhone or iTunes (which would be amazingly cool) I will be 100% satisfied with my choice to use Google's services exclusively.
On the subject of integrated services, I'd like to point out that I've already tried and been (so far) unsatisfied with Apple's MobileMe offering. Besides an incredibly slow and buggy web interface, that often "reloads" instead of sending a message when you click send so you lose what you typed, there's been multiple prolonged outages and it's expensive. At $99 a year (or ~$50 for an activation code on eBay) it's way more expensive than the free options out there. Don't get me wrong, when it works it's really awesome. Push email (mostly) works great, and the over-the-air syncing with the calendar is the holy grail for me. The wife doesn't understand the reasoning behind wanting to pay for something like this, either, which also makes this a non-viable option.
Hopefully Google will implement push email and some sort of native calendar syncing into the iPhone or iTunes soon. I'd love to be able to be totally happy with the services I use. (This is not a gripe, whiny, or any sort of complaint or hate post, though. I totally understand that it's free and I get-what-I-get because of that. I'm cool with the idea.) Google Android has me worried, though. Now that they have their own mobile operating system and devices running it what's the motivation to add new features to the iPhone, their biggest competition? Android isn't going to be pulling over many iPhone users, I don't think. Their first device is ugly and I think most people are getting the iPhone for the "cool factor" as opposed to the operating system itself. Sure, the iPhone will shed some users for the Android devices but I think that the iPhone will remain the leader for quite some time. This will, theoretically, keep Google interested in the device and encourage them to update and add new features to their existing services that people access through it.
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