Google

Sparrow, the elegant, delightful Gmail -- and general mail -- created for the Mac and brought over to the iPhone, has announced they've been acquired by Google. Sparrow CEO Dom Leca announced the deal on the Sparrow blog, saying in part:

Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.

Which is, to say the least, bitter sweet from a user's perspective, and immediately brings a few thoughts to mind:

Earlier today, Google announced and then rapidly released Google Chrome for iPhone and iPad, leaving many of us screaming "finally!" Google Chrome is a very popular -- the most popular, according to Google -- web browser for Mac and PC. It lets you keep bookmarks, tabs, logins and more synced between computers. With Google Chrome for iOS, you can now bring that same personalized experience to your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Google has updated its Gmail app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to include integration with iOS 5's Notification Center; this allows Gmail notifications to show up as banners, alerts and lock screen options. Google claims that notifications show up five times faster than previous versions of the app.

Maps are core technology on a smartphone these days. We depend on our phones to make calls and otherwise keep us in contact, and we depend on them to tell us where we are and help us find where were are going. We depend on them. Messing with a successful mapping solution on mobile, in any way, is non-trivial.

As Android Central's Phil Nickinson has often remarked -- maps could well be Google's flagship product. (AdSense/AdWords may be their most important, but nothing else comes close to the sheer user-facing coolness of Maps.) As 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman mentioned after Google's own map event yesterday, Google has devoted years to building out and developing their Maps service.

How will Apple replace all that in iOS 6?