Google released updates for its Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps on Monday, which include optimization for the iPhone X's screen.
The apps look great on the new iPhone X's edge-to-edge display. They use up all the available screen real estate that the iPhone X has to offer, including the area around the "notch," which Apple calls its TrueDepth camera system, and the bottom of the display, too.
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Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Google apps like Gmail, Maps, Hangouts, and Calendar to become optimized for the iPhone X. As of the time of writing, those apps make your $1,000 bezel-less iPhone X look like a $700 iPhone 8 with bezels:
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider
So far, Google has updated a bunch of other apps for the iPhone X, including Chrome, YouTube, Google Photos, Drive, Assistant, Earth, Duo (but not Allo), and even Google+ and Translate. That's a good list of Google apps, but the lack of optimization for hugely popular apps like Gmail, Maps, and Calendar is perplexing.
It's not the worst thing in the world, and we'll likely see updates for those popular apps sometime soon. When optimization for the iPhone X's screen does come along, we'll likely get more usable space like we did for the Docs app. For now, though, users who use those un-optimized apps will be reminded what it feels like to own an iPhone with bezels.
We reached out to Google to ask about how it prioritizes updates for its various iOS apps, but the company did not immediately respond.
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