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According to a tweet by the official Google Voice Twitter account, Google has pulled the Voice for iOS app from the iTunes App Store. Google decided to pull the app due to its crashing on startup, which was introduced with iOS 5 (Couldn’t sort it out in 3 months of iOS5Beta?). Google says hang tight for the time being, because they’ll be updating/rereleasing the app again. Tweet:

Removed the iPhone app from the App store. We’ll have a new version for you ASAP with a fix for the sign in bug.

There also appears to be some issues with Sprint’s use of Google Voice causing iMessages to get confused.  Apple has a Support document for that (below).
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Android Police has gotten exclusive screenshots of the Gmail, Calendar, and Email widgets for the upcoming Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. As you can see with the Gmail widget above, the Ice Cream Sandwich version features a slightly upgraded UI, but is missing Labels. Below is calendars
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During their earnings call Thursday, Google announced that there have been 190 million Android handsets activated. Interestingly, if you look at the numbers on Android’s Developer page, 1.5% of all devices that accessed the market within the last 30 days are running Honeycomb — the almost exclusive OS for Android tablets (well, excluding a few million Samsung Galaxy Tab 7s and other tablets running 2.x Android). So, if all 190 million of those devices accessed the market in the last 30 days, that leaves only 3.4 million Honeycomb tablets on the market if you do the math. Ouch..

With all of the numbers added up, it’s indicating that Android still has some catch up to do against the big Apple when it comes to tablets. Perhaps Ice Cream Sandwich will help with that.
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Google has just announced on their blog that they will be shutting down Google Buzz in a few weeks. Users will be able to take out their data from Buzz with Google Takeout, but it will still be viewable on their Google Profile.

In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+. While people obviously won’t be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.

Google also announced a slew of other products that will be closed in January of 2012, including Code Search, Jaiku, and iGoogle’s social features.

So what’s up with all of these product closures? As explained before, and also in yesterday’s earnings call, Google is trying to put more focus around core products. In today’s case it looks like these products will allow the Google team to focus more on Google+. I think we’re all fine with that, right?

The NYTimes thinks so.

According to numerous music executives, Google is eager to open the store in the next several weeks. It would most likely be connected to Google’s existing cloud service, Music Beta, which lets people back up their songs on remote servers and stream them to mobile phones and other devices, said these executives, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private and continuing.

Being able to buy MP3s would be a big hole for Google to fill, but it is having a hard time convincing the music industry that it is genuine about stopping piracy.  It will be interesting to see what concessions Google gives up to get MP3s and how their system will compare to Apple, Amazon and the other vendors.

Maybe they’ll be able to remove that pesky ‘beta’ tag as well.

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(Update: Over, check it out after the break) Starting at 4:30 ET, Google will be hosting their quarterly earnings call to discuss Q3 earnings with investors. We’ll be updating below when the call starts, or you can listen in here. Stay tuned!

Larry Page, Patrick Pichette, Nikesh Arora, and Susan Wojcicki will be hosting the call — starting in just a few minutes.

Follow along after the break:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/?v=X3EO_zehMkM]

What do you get by marrying Google Maps to WebGL, a software library that extends the capability of the JavaScript programming language to allow it to generate interactive 3D graphics within any compatible web browser such as Google’s Chrome 14 or Firefox Beta? Pure awesomeness, that’s what. They are calling to Google MapsGL and it enables “far richer visuals and animations”, the search company wrote in a blog post this morning:

WebGL is a new technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without additional installed software. With WebGL your maps experience is much better with 3D buildings, smoother transitions between imagery and the ability to instantly “swoop” into Street View without a plugin.

Just visit maps.google.com and click “Try it now” to take hardware-accelerated Maps for a spin. We wrote in the past about WebGL-based Chrome experiments worth checking out, including a remarkable water simulation and interactive music video.

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The Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) will be announced in Hong Kong on October 19th, if a new report from Engadget is true. Both products would be announced by Samsung and Google at AllThingsD’s Asia conference, the report mentions. The Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich were originally scheduled to be announced yesterday, but were delayed out of respect for the passing of Apple’s Steve Jobs.

There have been other rumors floating around that the Nexus Prime will go on sale, on Verizon Wireless, November 3rd. Ice Cream Sandwich would also land that day, too.

In attempt to grow their young social network, Google has taken out a full page ad in the traditional print version of the New York Times promoting Google+ Hangouts. Search Engine Land posted the photo above, where Google talks about the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu hosting a Hangout last week in their ad. Google strikes out parts to explain how they came to the rescue when the Dalai Lama wasn’t granted a visa to visit South Africa.

Google’s decision to take out a full ad was definitely smart. Yesterday numbers were published by an analyst showing how much of Google+’s traffic is beginning to decline, but maybe spreading the social network to a different set of people will help. That ad is great and all, but why didn’t Google use some images to catch the eye?

What once used to send you to Picasa Web Albums, the “photos” link on Google’s navigation bar now sends you to Google+’s Photo service — Google Operating System discovered. Google+’s Photo service displays photos from your circles, from your Android phone, photo’s you’ve been tagged in, and your list of Picasa Web albums. Google+ Photos is still missing some editing features, album descriptions, and the ability to edit prints.

Don’t get this confused however, as Picasa is still available by manually typing in the URL. But, this seems for the best, right?

Update: He’s wrong.  We’ve heard from an impeccable source that Google plans to have invites out “in the next day or so and there is no patent delay.

We reported earlier that Google and Samsung were delaying the release of the new Nexus Prime phone and Android 4.0 “Ice cream Sandwich” out of respect for the passing of Steve Jobs.

“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing,” the companies said.

But according to often (but not always) correct blogger Eldar Murtazin, there are patent issues at hand which need to be addressed before the devices and OS  ship.  Specifically, Google is slicing out features which may be subject to Apple’s Patents…

See Steve Jobs introducing multi-touch in 2007 below, saying “Boy have we patented it!”.  
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PhanDroid reports this evening that the delayed Nexus Prime will launch November 3rd, after a prior announcement. The Nexus Prime’s announcement tomorrow was delayed by Samsung due to the passing of Apple’s Steve Jobs —  as a sign of respect for the innovator.

The Nexus Prime will be the platform the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, will be launched on. We’ve seen a few leaks of ICS revealing a sleeker design. An announcement  of both will be shortly before the launch November 3rd says PhanDroid. Carrier wise, the Nexus Prime will reportedly land on Verizon Wireless. A November 3rd release date makes sense, because of Verizon’s Thursday release schedule.

If PocketNow’s mock-up above is accurate, I think it’s pretty safe to say the iPhone 4S is going to get a run for its money. Here are some rumored specs.

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Over the past 60 hours, Chinese officials have begun blocking Gmail and the Android Market running on Android devices reports Penn Olson. In the report, Penn Olson says that Gmail can’t send a single email and the Market is incredibly slow, making it utterly useless. The ban is currently taking place across many ISPs and mobile carriers around the country.

As the report mentions, this ban won’t affect that many Android users in China. Many use other email providers and other app markets that have been made available. But at any rate, why would China begin to make this move? Now there’s no confirming this.. but what if it was a possibility:

Come to think of it, it might be related to how Google+ this weekend enabled the Dalai Lama to chat with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu – a virtual equivalent of the planned face-to-face birthday meeting in South Africa that Chinese authorities were so utterly desperate to stop.

..just a little something to think about.

A few weeks ago a report surfaced that Google Plus saw 1269% user growth, due to the social network opening up to the public and earning a nice spot on the Google homepage. Today, however, analytics firm Chitika is reporting that Google Plus’s traffic has dropped 60% — indicated by the graph above.

Are people not digging Google Plus?

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Sad news from the Android camp as both Google and Samsung announce (via Pocket-lint) that the Galaxy Nexus, also known as the Nexus Prime, will not launch at the Mobile Unpacked conference October 12 next Wednesday, as originally expected. The two companies provided no explanation for the delay apart from this official statement:

Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.

The CTIA conference runs October 11-13, 2011 at San Diego’s Convention Center. The publication speculates that the delay could be related to avoiding a likely media conflict if Steve Jobs’ funeral were to happen that day. The wording of the official statement, that “it is just not the right time to announce a new product”, supports the thesis.

UPDATE: Ina Fried over at the AllThingsD blog quotes unnamed sources who said Google and Samsung “just felt it was the wrong time to hold a launch event, as the world continues mourning Jobs”. Furthermore:

The decision to postpone things was made late last night at the top levels of both companies, sources said, with Jobs’ death being the reason. There are no delays with the product itself, sources insisted.

Samsung and Google later updated their original press statement, which now reads:

We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.

Another possibility, albeit much less likely, is an unknown patent issue that might need sorting out. 

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For those of you who haven’t heard, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs has passed away this evening at the age of 56. Google’s Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Sergey Brin have issued the following statements regarding Steve’s death:

I am very, very sad to hear the news about Steve. He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me. He was very kind to reach out to me as I became CEO of Google and spend time offering his advice and knowledge even though he was not at all well. My thoughts and Google’s are with his family and the whole Apple family.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXPeIeKYd8]

Google announced today a new pilot program called Trusted Stores. Trusted Stores will give shoppers a piece of mind when shopping online, telling them which stores ship on time, have good customer support, etc. Once awarded the Trusted Badge, credited stores can display it on their website (seen after the break).

If a company would like to participate they need to provide Google with information regarding shipping, and Google will also collect information from the store’s customers. Here’s a part we really like: if a customer decides to select free protection from Google, they will receive help from Google if a problem ever arises. Google will also offer a $1,000 lifetime protection package. Expect this to start popping up around the web a lot more.

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Google has just announced that they will be holding their Q3 earnings call on October 13th at 1:30 PST to go over financial results. We’ll be covering the whole thing, but if you’re interested you can listen to the audio here. Press release after the break:

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Confirming previous reports, Conceivably Tech has uncovered a post that Google Chrome will soon be making its way into Android. A post on the Chromium Message Boards tells us that Android’s version of Chrome will have the same features as the desktop version — tabs, Skia 2D graphics library, and maybe a combined search and website bar?

Sadly, there’s no word on when this new browser will hit.  Now we’re not drawing any conclusions, but perhaps this will be announced at Google’s (and Samsung’s) event October 11th? For those of you who haven’t heard, Samsung and Google are rumored to announce the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich. While this tour didn’t show it, let’s hope Chrome is bundled into ICS.
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Flickr has had an iOS client on the market since September 20th, but it took a lot of teeth gnashing and cursing from the Android camp before the company would unveil the official Android app. Well, here it is… The Flickr for Android app lets you take photos, enhance them with filters and quickly share on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other image sharing services.

It’s nice that you can take advantage of geotagging and built-in mapping to explore activities and places where the photos have been taken. Commenting is also supported and you’ll especially appreciate stunning full screen browsing and slideshows. The app is free and you can grab your copy in Android Market. Now that it’s been finally released, perhaps the program will help tilt Flickr camera and cameraphone usage stats (see below) in favor of Android and away from Apple’s iPhone. Full release notes after the break.

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For those of you who manage a lot of sites, Google’s latest addition to Webmaster is sure to benefit you. Tonight, Google has announced a new Webmaster tool that allows you to see if you’re site is in good standing — to make sure there aren’t any issues. As you can see above it’s pretty simple. Here’s what Google checks for:

1. Have we detected malware on the site?
2. Have any important pages been removed via our URL removal tool?
3. Are any of your important pages blocked from crawling in robots.txt?