The iPad version of the app -- which looks virtually identical to the iPhone variant, just with scaled-up graphics -- does a few things. First, it acts as an easy-access portal for different Google services. For users who have a single Google account, it might not be of much use, but for those of us who have multiple Google Apps accounts, its a nice way to easily access portions of those accounts.
Second, the Google Mobile app can do voice search. While not as novel as it was in November 2008, voice search is still one of the better features of Google's mobile offerings.
While we're happy to have an iPad version of Google Mobile, we can't say we're entirely pleased with the first release. Yes, the interface elements are now properly scaled, but the app itself hasn't been tailored to work on the iPad. The accelerometer works for certain parts of the app (like voice search), but not for viewing accounts. Furthermore, we found a few bugs in how the app is displayed as well.
And while it's great that Google has optimized its Gmail interface to work with the iPad (more or less -- again, we have some issues with how messages are displayed when the iPad is in portrait), they still haven't optimized other elements of the site, including Google Docs, Google Reader and even Google News.
The iPhone interfaces of Google Reader and Google News are both passable, but for Google Docs, you're better off using a third party app like GoodReader [iTunes link]. Still, we'd love to have an easy-to-edit interface on the iPad.
You can download Google Mobile for the iPad now or update your existing copy. What do you think of Google on the iPad? Let us know.