Google Apps has a single signon API. This makes you think they value the concept of single signon.
Due to recent upgrades in Google Apps and other circumstances, I’m down from four regularly signed in Google accounts to just two. Aquarionics.com is a google apps account for mail, I had Nicholas@ this domain as a google account already, and I was using aquarion@gmail as my main account since shortly after I got a beta invite (Until AqCom was Google Apps, all Aquarionics email forwarded to my gmail account). Recent advances merged the nicholas@aquarionics google account and the google apps account.
What I want is to sign into Google.
Right now, I’m signed into my email & calendar using the apps account; and Reader and Youtube using my Gmail account. The new thing allows me to use Reader under google apps, but – crucially – doesn’t allow me to merge my Gmail Reader data with my Aquarionics data, meaning that if I start using the Apps Reader account, I lose all the data for recommendations, all the shared items, all my starred items and fuck around with everyone who follows me. I went though the sharing problem with Google Calendar when I moved over to that, and it was a ballache.
Docs is even worse. There’s no concept of moving ownership of documents from a Gmail account to an Apps one, so the only way to copy existing documents over is either to export and import (as word documents, ffs) or share from one to the other. Plus, right now if I go to my Apps docs store (logged into both gmail and apps accounts), and click a file that the App account can read and the Gmail one can’t, I get refused access because Gmail can’t see it. From the Aquarionics docs store.
Google: I want to migrate things to my apps account. I can migrate my calendar from exchange, I can migrate emails from an IMAP server. I can download or export every calendar, document, email or photo I have stored with you into local copies. You’re whining about Facebook being a lockin for contacts, but WHY CAN’T I GET MY DATA FROM ONE SIDE OF YOUR SERVICE TO THE OTHER?
