Due to what Google calls a ‘lack of interest from users’, Google will not be developing any Gmail or Google Drive apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, according to a new report. This comes as a major blow to Google users who were hoping to have their favorite services available as an app on Windows 8, or WP8 for that matter.
“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8. If that changes, we would invest there, of course,” Google Apps Product Managerment Director, Clay Bavor stated in an interview. “In 2012 we’ve laid some of the ground work and really improved the experience of our core apps on mobile devices, such as adding native editing of spreadsheets for both iOS and Android apps. We really see these as the first versions of our mobile experience, though, so we will continue to make big investments in mobile in 2013 with the goal of having beautiful mobile apps,” Bavor added. Google’s rival, Yahoo, just recently released a Windows 8 app to the Windows Store, so it makes no sense for Google to completely disregard Microsoft’s two new platforms, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. While there is an official Google Search app available in the Windows Store, users wont find an official Gmail or Google Driver app. While we have no idea where Google got the idea that there was a lack of interest from users, those interested in accessing Google services such as Gmail can still do so via the internet, the old fashioned way, although having an app would make things slightly simpler.
