All these recent "spring cleaning" by Google has a lot to do with the fact that Android is now the de facto smartphone platform of choice and command substantial amount of market share, Google is doing all it can to crush any potential competition including closing access to its multiple services (Do you know Google News API is also being pulled soon?) via once publicly available API or standard channel (like CalDav).

Android has shifted Google's emphasis to be "Google Everywhere" to "Google everywhere via Android", it's a fine line but it explained a lot of these recent behaviors.