iGoogle Set to Retire
iGoogle is set retire on November 1, 2013 with the mobile version already turned off at the end of last month (mobile first, right?!). Needless to say this has left many people unhappy but Google is sticking by its decision to close the service since announcing it last month – regardless of what the community thinks.
Now, even though I’m an avid iGoogle user myself, I tend to agree with. Google’s reasoning for the decision. iGoogle has been surpassed by modern web apps and is an old technology that filled the gap of personalised real-time information before things like Google Chrome existed. Now that we have modern app based services such as the iTunes App Store, The Android Play Store and the Chrome Web Store this technology is no longer required.
Saying that, it will doubtlessly be difficult for some people who’ve been using iGoogle for all these years to just switch to their app-based equivalents – especially when some of those widgets/gadgets from iGoogle have no replacement yet! At least Google is giving people 16 months to find and get used to those replacements.
I’ve recently switched to Google Reader from iGoogle myself as a result of the news and had to learn how to export/import my feeds which is what you will need to do if you want to keep them after the retirement deadline. I’ll be writing up a how to guide on the best way to do that shortly.
Until then, let us know in the comments what you will miss (if at all) most about iGoogle?
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