Google Nixes Some Calendar Features and Other Software Offerings

An anonymous reader writes "Google on Friday announced it is shutting down a slew of features and services as part of its winter cleaning. Google Calendar will be losing a few features, Google Sync will be axed (on the consumer side), as will Google Calendar Sync, SyncML, the Issue Tracker Data API, and the Punchd app."

Carddav/caldav?

[ilsaloving]

Does this mean Android will FINALLY have decent out of the box carddav/caldav support?

That's one of the biggest things that I've preferred iOS to Android. That, and the stupid way applications are stored on the system partition so you 'run out of free space' despite having gigabytes free.

Re:Why am I using Google, again?

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

Seems like every time I sign up for a non-Google service and get used to it, within a couple years Google pull the rug out from under me.

When I signed up for GrandCentral it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then Google came in, brought the company, re-branded their service as Google Voice, and then shutdown GrandCentral. The problem is, Google Voice doesn't support Canadian numbers, but GrandCentral did. It's been 3 years since then and I'm still waiting for Google Voice to come up north to restore the service I lost 3 years ago.

I know, I know, it's a free economy and Google can buy whatever company they want. Neither GrandCentral nor Google owe me any service and they're in no obligation to provide any service to Canada. But I still wish Google hasn't done that.

Re:You just have to use the gmail app for push

[sdsucks]

So they are essentially forcing me to use two applications for my email then, if I want push from them (since they are far from the only email provider I use).

Same shit different pile ;). All said, it's a move I've been intending for awhile anyway, so this is just motivation to make the move away from their services.

I was using the new Google Maps app for iOS the other day and it seems like every page i open it wants me to sign into my Google account so they can track me. Deleted. I prefer paid offline maps anyway, since I live in Canada and often travel where cell coverage is limited.

Re:The end of Google for me.

[thegarbz]

I feel that they have turned form only partially evil to complete evil. Eliminating push email is the final trigger to get me to completely eliminate Google services from my life.

So in an effort to embrace and open standard and axe support for horrible proprietary crap from Microsoft you're now ditching them because they've become ... too evil?

*slow clap*

Please do us all a favour and stop moaning and just go and migrate to MobileMe, err I mean iWorks, err mean iCloud and I'm not even sure it's still iCloud I mean it has been out for like a year so I expect Apple to axe it in favour of the next incompatible proprietary crap soon.

Re:Now I have to use the gmail app

[Anonymous Coward]

"If it doesn't cost you money, then you are the product being sold"

I get the point and concede that there's a valid one to be made there, but man am I ever sick of hearing that.

Look, it's a triangle trade. [wikipedia.org] Google trades a service to you in exchange for your attention to ads; Google trades your attention to advertisers in exchange for money. The advertisers and you are both customers. Sure, it's vastly different from being a customer of a grocery store or restaurant, but it's not 100% different either, so don't oversimplify.

"You're the product" has turned into such a damned cliche on Slashdot, and a thought-terminating [wikipedia.org] one at that.

Re:Who cares

[thetoadwarrior]

I've never noticed an issue with it. But there are other options too like fastmail (I think that's $35 a year) which anyone I know who has used it can't complain. I get less spam on my non-gmail accounts but I'm not going to say that's because they're necessarily better. It's porbably due to me using my own domain which you have to know about where as with gmail you can pretty much send email to @gmail.com and hit a valid address so I'll admit google has a harder job I would imagine.

Fastmail might be the best option. They only do email so they're not likely to remove much unless they're going under. Though while they do only do email, they were bought by opera not that I've heard that's made much difference. I considered trying them myself but rackspace hasn't been a problem so I'm not sure I should change just for the sake of it. Email is so such a standard thing though I think it's easy to find decent cheap options and if someone does decide to charge for it they hopefully realise it's too competitive to offer a subpar service so they should hopefully not to that.

Re:Now I have to use the gmail app

[Gonoff]

Listen very carefully, for I shall say this only once

Gmail is not free.Google rakes in a nice sum of money from it.
You do not pay them cash directly, but they make money by selling advertising etc. . I am willing to pay this price. This gives me the same rights as any other customer of a large corporation.