This is good news, because I feel that Google has always ignored a very legitimate use case of Google Apps -- wanting your own personal Google Account with your own email address.
Many people, myself included, want to use all of the personal services that Google provides backed by their own domain, not Gmail. You used to be able to do this sans hosted email, but that feature got removed a year or two back. If you wanted to use your own domain, you had to sign up for an entire Apps account, when it really should have been the same as before + some MX records for hosted email.
Perhaps using your own domain for a Google Account should be a paid service anyway, and $50/year isn't incredibly pricey. But a 99.9% uptime SLA and phone support aren't necessary for what can really be just a vanity. (That said, phone support in Google's ecosystem is kind of nice...)
Being a Google Apps user so that I could have it all at my own domain really made me feel like a forgotten stepchild. When the G1 came out I couldn't properly use it as you couldn't make purchases using a GAFYD account. I forget all of the things I ran into where Google wasn't compatible with itself due to me being a GAFYD user.
Oh absolutely. I had a laundry list of the things that were supported on Apps months after everybody else. We've always been second-class citizens, and now everybody new is required to pay. I hope the trend doesn't continue.
There was App Engine, there was Google+, there was Android, there was Voice, and a long host of others.
Many people, myself included, want to use all of the personal services that Google provides backed by their own domain, not Gmail. You used to be able to do this sans hosted email, but that feature got removed a year or two back. If you wanted to use your own domain, you had to sign up for an entire Apps account, when it really should have been the same as before + some MX records for hosted email.
Perhaps using your own domain for a Google Account should be a paid service anyway, and $50/year isn't incredibly pricey. But a 99.9% uptime SLA and phone support aren't necessary for what can really be just a vanity. (That said, phone support in Google's ecosystem is kind of nice...)