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Incoming: A Native Gmail iPhone App. Finally.
- kevinherron 15y agoIf this is true and it's as good as it could be then it might just replace MobileMail.app on my iPhone dock...
- Thrymr 15y agoI agree that it's about time, but I think Apple beat them to it on push notifications. Gmail does work with iOS 5 notifications through the default mail app.
- zyb09 15y agoOnly if you set it up as Exchange account.
- theatrus2 15y agoWhich heaven forbid you try syncing anything other than Mail. Contacts and Calendars have some very subtle bugs which snowball over time (and even on Google Premier Apps).
- oacgnol 15y agoWhat bugs do you speak of? I've been syncing my contacts with Google and I haven't noticed anything gamebreaking.
- kalvin_ridejoy 15y agoThe biggest one for me is that contact photos resize down to tiny thumbnails after any sync with Google Contacts. There've been a thousand complaints in Google forums for the last two years and it's still unfixed. Google Contacts also uses a different set of field names, and will frequently sync "main" to "other", for instance. Or just mess up field formatting, or break gtalk ids...
- redditmigrant 15y agoOne that I have noticed is that "Continue search on server" doesnt work.
- pixelcloud 15y agoThat is my biggest peeve about Mail.app with gmail
- rkudeshi 15y agoYep, I can confirm dealing with these issues for years myself as well. As soon as iCloud was released, I happily ported over my contacts. It's been a much better experience so far (I can finally use large contact photos!).
- matwood 15y agoI thought about doing this. Do you store the canonical versions in iCloud and push them Google or have you just left Google behind? How did you go about setting it up?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- gsharma 15y agoIt depends how they implement it. Google Voice app for iPhone is not that great. Can't copy paste a phone number & if you put app in background, it erases the number. I wonder how they implement multiple Google accounts (multiple Google logins is a mess in the browser). That being said, I like the mobile version of gmail.com
- HaloZero 15y agoBut the issue is the deep integration. If I choose to send an email in iOS, will it send me to this gmail app or will it to send me to Mail? It's the same issue with Google Voice.
- iansinke 15y agoSure, that's a big issue. But it might not be as bad as it seems. The reason a native Gmail app is such great news is because of the special way in which we read and organize our Gmail accounts: Priority Inbox, tags rather than folders, stars, etc. There will probably be nothing special about the native app's compose interface, though, so I don't see that it will be a problem to keep the account registered in both clients, but only to sync regularly with the native Gmail app, and to use whatever app iOS picks (undoubtedly MobileMail.app) when composing.
- Pewpewarrows 15y agoIt's an inherent issue with iOS, and one that would take a major update to solve (in other words, don't hold your breath until iOS6 or 7). Android solves it using a system of "Intents," where you basically just broadcast a message to the system saying, hey, I want to open this kind of file or do this kind of general action. Any app can register themselves as a receiver of a type of Intent. When there is a conflict (multiple apps can potentially handle the same Intent request) the user is given a small dialog window to choose what to open, along with an option to make that one the default.
- commandar 15y agoIntents is probably one of my single favorite under the hood features of Android as a user. Installing an app and having it instantly be able to exchange data with any other app on the system in a smart way makes the process so simple you don't really even have to think about it. It's one of the parts of Android I'd have a hard time living without.
- joebadmo 15y agoIt's also what makes the OS-level back button so important, which full-time iOS users seem not to understand when they cursorily try an Android phone. (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/31/android-hardware http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/31/android-hardware) I agree with this thread that this is one of the best things about Android.
- antimora 15y agoIs it only for iPhone? I wish I had a native iPad gmail app. It would really cool. Certainly this would beat imap version.
- dmmalam 15y agoAwesome, really the only thing that I missed on my Android phone. Now just need a native gmaps app with navigation.
- ugh 15y agoWhy is an extra app necessary? Is this only about bringing a different UI to the table compared to the default Mail app? What am I missing?
- gkoberger 15y agoAs someone who used Android (with GMail) for a few years and recently switched to iPhone, it's painful to lose archiving, labels, starring, priority inbox, complete thread history and a good search. Additionally, the UI for threading GMail has is much better than the native app.
- ugh 15y ago(Mail allows you to archive. Starring works, too. Labels map to folders, depending on how you use them that might be good enough or not. Search is pretty great with iOS5, not sure what Gmail is doing better there. From what I remember Gmail’s search has always been pretty horrible. Maybe that has changed.) I can understand why you might want the priority inbox. That, however, doesn’t seem like a very big deal to me.
- gkoberger 15y agoThere's a difference between being able to do something, and being able to do it with one click.
- ugh 15y agoThat depends on how exactly you use something, does it not? If you rarely use something but it takes up space all the time then that’s a problem, especially on a phone.
- joshma 15y agoWhile you're asserting that it's not so useful to you, at the same time you're hinting at why others may appreciate it (if they use it frequently).
- awolf 15y agoI just happened to download the Google+ native app today for the first time. It is terrible. Hopefully the gmail app will not follow suit.
- grandalf 15y agoThanks to google and apple if this is true!
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- thirdsun 15y agoSparrow, the popular GMail desktop client, is said to be coming to iOS too.
- carterschonwald 15y agosource? I'd be very interested in hearing more about this.
- thirdsun 15y agohttp://m.readwriteweb.com/archives/sparrow_gmail_app_for_iphone_will_apple_approve.php http://m.readwriteweb.com/archives/sparrow_gmail_app_for_iph... I think they can do better than Google's recent official app.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- artursapek 15y agoI hope Google never forces users to switch to their "new look." I like it for their other services (Docs, Search), but for mail it looks so dull for some reason. Perhaps I'm also just really used to the "arcade" theme I've been using for 2 or 3 years. Regardless, a mobile app will be nice to have since it will be optimized for Gmail (which is all I use, even for my own SMTP). I do get push notifications through the standard Mail app, though, so I'm not sure why that was a complaint.
- OoTheNigerian 15y agoThe Android app is REALLY crap. It does not sync so it is practically useless. Unfortunately, Google ignores all pleas for bug fixes. Because "hey! it is free" What I am saying is do not get excited about the iPhone GMail app.
- omouse 15y agoit does sync; check your settings and check how much internal storage you have
- irahul 15y agoWhat phone are you using? I use a Samsung Galaxy S I9003, and when I set up account sync, it starts a background service for syncing my gmail and google apps accounts, and is syncs and notifies just fine regardless of whether I have the mail app running in background(I generally don't since notification works without leaving it running). Either you are using an older software, or you haven't enabled sync.
- vetinari 15y agoIt sync since 1.0; three years ago I used it with G1 and it worked fine. There is no older version, that was made public. GP has either disabled sync, or is trolling.
- OoTheNigerian 15y agoI am using a HTC ChaCha. Before this I was using the Milestone. It is a huge problem. To the down-voters, pay a visit to the App Store and see the reviews.
- jwallaceparker 15y agoI agree completely. I hope this article has legs.
- crag 15y agoHow much you wanna bet you won't be able to use it with Google Apps (the paid accounts)?
- irahul 15y agoI don't know about the paid accounts, but my free account works fine on my Android. I don't see why the native app shouldn't work fine for Apps accounts on iOS.
- jinushaun 15y agoMuch rather have a native Google Talk app on iOS than Gmail. The selection of IM apps currently on iOS are far from perfect.
- smpb 15y agoI just wish Google would start building universal apps for iOS. Their apps on iPhone aren't really all that great, and when you add that to the fact that they seem to be ignoring the iPad, it's just annoying. The iPad is great for mail. A Gmail app built only for the iPhone form factor won't be at all useless, but it will be a disappointment.
- barumrho 15y agoI have not figured out how to sync my calendar and contacts in sync with iCloud and Google. Hopefully this app will solve that problem.
- ebzlo 15y agoYou need to set up your gmail account as an Exchange account. I do this and it syncs everything like it did for me on Android.
- warmfuzzykitten 15y agoThe iOS mail app works fine with gmail. What's the fuss?
- ceejayoz 15y agoI'd kill for a mail app that properly handles my Gmail labels.