Thanks to Andy Beal for pointing at the Reuters story which says that GDS for OS X is on the way.

As for Andy's question of whether or not I believe him, the answer is still no. I didn't doubt that Google might release this. I doubted that it was going to be released later because Mac users "won't tolerate anything crappy".

I guess that wasn't clear earlier.

Now, I personally can't wait to get my hands on a Mac version of GDS. If it can properly index and search mbox files, that will kick much ass. I've got a ton of e-mail I'd love to be able to search. And it's not like we've got a Yahoo Desktop Search product available for the Mac. Or Windows. Or, well... anything.

By all accounts, Google has done a good job with the first version of GDS on Windows. If the Mac one is similar, I'll probably find myself using it on a regular basis.

Posted by jzawodn at October 30, 2004 06:26 PM

Reader Comments
# Clint Ecker said:

Just thought I'd let you know that Arstechnica updated their story after Tim O'Reilly posted a comment in their discussion forums on the story:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041029-4360.html

Slashdot updated their story as well:

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/04/10/30/005205.shtml?tid=217&tid=3

on October 30, 2004 08:50 PM
# Merrick E. Lozano said:

I was at the event as well, the Reuters reporter interpretted Schmidts comments very optimistically. I posted about it here

on October 31, 2004 09:26 AM
# Merrick E. Lozano said:

http://www.searchvisibilityreport.com/blog/2004/10/google-desktop-for-os-x-not-likely/

on October 31, 2004 09:27 AM
# Anjan said:

It'd be interesting to stack it up against Spotlight, depending on when Tiger is finally released.

on October 31, 2004 06:42 PM
# Guy Platt said:

Glad to hear that GDS is coming for the Mac, but how about GDS searching Thunderbird mail (on Windows and Mac).

on November 11, 2004 03:32 AM
# Thomas Massengale said:

Your observations about Google providing a Mac GDS misses the main point - new versions of GDS automatically backup common document formats like those in Word and Excel on their own servers, enabling users to search for documents on multiple computers that they have indexed and attached to their Google accounts, being able to access Word work documents, for instance, at home, even if the work computer is switched off.

People's concerns about the current government litigation against Google aside, this is a great feature, effectively backing up some of your most key documents, all free. Users will be shocked that, if they suffer a disk crash and loose their data, much of it will be available to them at Google. Just one more reason to pray that Google GDS for Mac is made available soon.

on March 15, 2006 01:48 AM
# said:

Is anyone having trouble with GDS causing problems with other programs? I installed and my iTunes would not play nor would any audio connected to saved videos. I unloaded GDS and iTunes started working correctly. I use a MacBook. Thanks.

on February 20, 2009 08:14 AM
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