Google just gave a huge snub to Microsoft after saying that it has no plans of developing apps for Windows Phone devices. Now, as part of its ‘Winter Cleaning’ the search giant announced that it will stop supporting Google Sync, which enabled access to Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts via Exchange ActiveSync protocol. After January 30, 2013, new devices will no longer be able to set up the functionality which will however continue to function for existing users and users of Google Apps for Business, Government and Education. Additionally Google Calendar Sync is being terminated immediately and Google Sync for Nokia S60 will be stopped on January 30, 2013. Older services such as SyncML will also be stopped on the same date.
Google says that, with open standards like IMAP, CardDAV and CalDAV, these older proprietary services will no longer be needed. This is expected to cause a minor hassle for owners of Apple devices such as the iPhone, where Exchange made it very easy to set up push email functionality. The Gmail app and Google account auto setup functionality has however made these changes less significant. But this will mainly cause a problem limited to Windows Phone devices, for whom Google services appear to be increasingly shut down.
Besides these, it will also be shutting down some Google Calendar features, which were termed to be ‘less popular’. Among these are features like Appointment Slots and some Calendar Labs functions like Smart Scheduler. Finally, it will be shutting down the Issue Tracker Data API and the Punchd app that was available for Android and iOS devices. For more details about the Google Sync End of Life, you may check the support page here.
