Going Google On Windows Phone 7

If you’re giving Windows Phone 7 a shot but wondering how you can integrate a Windows phone with all your Google apps — well let me just tell you, it’s not easy. Sure it’s possible to do using only Google’s webapps, but most of us are still looking for native application solutions. Here’s how I’ve managed to access my must-have Google apps with nice native apps on my Windows Phone 7.

Note: One of the major disappointments with all of these solutions is the lack of push notifications, so you will have to access each of these applications regularly to stay up to date.

Access Gmail using native Google Mail support
Gmail has been built Windows Phone 7 has been built in to the account settings in Windows Phone and uses push notifications, so no searching necessary here.

Access Google Docs using GDocs
Google Documents is a fairly advanced web app and as of yet there is not an application for Windows Phone 7 that allows you to edit the documents in your Google Docs account. Howeve, GDocs which is available in the Marketplace for free (seemingly for a limited time only) is a great application for reading/viewing and storing documents locally for future viewing offline.

Access Google Calendar using SuperG Calendar
With the Windows Phone’s calendar sync with Google Calendar being limited to only your main calendar a good Google Calendar app was a must. Although a bit slow to load and refresh, SuperG Calendar was one of the best purchases I made in the market. SuperG allows you to view all calendar’s in your account, even your shared calendars. Again, it lacks push notifications but at $US1.99 this is a great purchase for those of you with multiple busy calendars.

Access Google Reader using Wonder Reader
And last but not least, Google Reader. After a few tries with a few other RSS feed readers, Wonder Reader stood out by far as the fastest and most capable of the bunch. Priced just right at $US1.99, it is worth every penny. It imports everything from your Google Reader account seamlessly. All of your folders are just as they are and it updates very quickly, even if you have a lot of feeds. It has even been updated to work with Google’s new 2-step verification.

Windows Phone 7 is still a relatively young platform; we rounded up our favourite apps early on, but if you’re a WP7 user and have a favourite or two of your own, let’s hear about it in the comments.


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