
The Gmail app for iPhone and iPad: version 2.0 - Firehed
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-gmail-app-for-iphone-and-ipad.html
======
paupino_masano
I was kind of hoping they'd put some more effort into Sparrow after acquiring
it. Even without push support: I still personally prefer that UI. I have
noticed a few minor bug fixes it being released so it doesn't seem like it is
completely forgotten.

Still, I'll give Gmail 2.0 a go for a week to see how I like it. Who knows? I
may change my mind.

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ZoFreX
As an Android user it's disheartening to see that the best mobile GMail app is
available for iOS only.

As an Android user that recently downgraded from 4.0 to 2.3, it is frankly
infuriating: you can only get the latest GMail app for Android if you are on
3.0+, which leaves the vast majority of Android users stuck with what is now a
4th rate app.

~~~
chimeracoder
> As an Android user that recently downgraded from 4.0 to 2.3, it is frankly
> infuriating: you can only get the latest GMail app for Android if you are on
> 3.0+, which leaves the vast majority of Android users stuck with what is now
> a 4th rate app.

As of this Thursday, Gingerbread is two years old. Why would you downgrade to
such an old version? That's comparable to running iOS 4 on an iPhone 3GS. I
got an iPhone in June, and I'm already being told that I can't upgrade several
applications because I'm not running the latest version of iOS and on the
latest iPhone.

Second of all, "vast majority" is a bit of a stretch. 55% are on Gingerbread
and 15% on pre-Gingebread[1], but given that Android encompasses a lot of
lower-end phones that are simply feature phones as well, that's not really
comparable to an iOS, which is used exclusively for smartphones. Many of those
users frankly won't care that they're not able to use the latest version of
the Gmail application - in fact, they may not be using it at all to begin
with.

> Android users stuck with what is now a 4th rate app.

This is a secondary point of yours, but I should add that I don't consider
even the Froyo version of Gmail to be a 4th rate app, let alone Gingerbread or
beyond. I can name several ways that the Android app outperforms the iOS Gmail
app.

[1] [http://www.tmonews.com/2012/10/google-releases-october-
distr...](http://www.tmonews.com/2012/10/google-releases-october-distribution-
chart-for-android-version-breakdown/)

~~~
neonkiwi
I was curious about statistics regarding devices 'in the field,' and all I
could find were these figures from Google such as the ones you cite (55% on
Gingerbread, 15% pre-Gingerbread), which I think should be tied to a very
important measuring detail—they are percentages of Android OS versions hitting
the Play Store during a two week period.

I think this is a deliberate choice of reporting statistic to make the Android
device world look more modern. They could report on a number of other
metrics[0], but from my observation, non-power users aren't frequenting app
stores—perhaps they'll download apps a few times when the device is new, but
after a while their phone is as customized as it's going to get. This issue is
likely compounded after a few times of hearing about some app to try, and
finding that it doesn't run on the dated OS.

Basically, I think there are loads of older Android installs in the wild,
whose owners aren't going to the Play Store as often as people who just bought
a new phone or tablet.

[0] I think something like access to Gmail via Android would be a better
representation of the real market, and that figure is likely measured within
Google. If not, it could be. I doubt the numbers would be very flattering...
even the Play Store access metrics aren't so great to begin with.

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r27d
I'm getting "The item you tried to buy is no longer available." when I try to
update.

~~~
kylekrall
Workaround: delete the app from your iTunes library first, then download the
'clean' version of 2.0 rather than the update.

[edit] Direct Link: <https://itunes.apple.com/app/gmail/id422689480>

~~~
msluyter
How do you get to the 2.0 version? I'm not finding it via searching the app
store. (I do however, find dozens of various gmail related crapware.)

Edit: tried the link above and still get the same error (and I've never
installed it before, so this should be a fresh install).

~~~
ujeezy
I had the same problem. I found it by searching for this string exactly:
"Gmail email from Google"

~~~
Terretta
The built-in updates notification item didn't work, but searching your phrase,
finding the item, and then trying "Update" did work.

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marknutter
Does anyone know if this is a native app, html5 app, or a hybrid of the two? I
could have sworn that the previous version of this app was at least partially
done in HTML5 because of the way the ui would re-render itself occasionally.

~~~
speg
Looks native to me, sort of similar to the Google+ app.

No unified inbox though. And push notifications still don't work for me (what
am I doing wrong?)

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ahc
I had to go enable them in ios settings for them to show up

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ChuckMcM
Wow, I like Google, I worked there for a while, sadly this is not a shining
example of "Googliness".

Let's count the challenges shall we?

1) If you happen to click the link for Version 2.0 in the Chrome browser
running on an iPad it gives you a blank screen.

2) If you happen to click on the link in the Safari browser it gives you the
download page but the App store says "This App is no longer available"

3) If you read the announcement all you see are iPhone screen shots, which
makes me wonder if "iPad support" consists of a "2X" in the corner of the
screen like it does on the Google Voice app. Gee, That lets me use 16 pixels
on my retina display to show one pixel in your App, I'm so thrilled.

Ok that last bit was a pretty snarky, the snark comes from my massive
disappointment at how unbelievably bad Google has been at dealing with the
existence of tablets. Have you _tried_ to use Google Docs on a tablet? Gmail?
Reader? Every product they own has the "mobile" version which assumes you can
hit every button with your thumb, or the "desktop" version which assumes
you've got a keyboard and 5 button mouse under your fingers. Hello, its been
_years_.

Here is hoping that when they actually put Gmail 2.0 back into the App store
it is useful on iPads. I've got $10 - $20 for the right email client for the
iPad, anyone want that money?

~~~
hnriot
How are these Google's problems? These are all Apple screwing up the update.
The direct link provided in many of the comments still works

<https://itunes.apple.com/app/gmail/id422689480?mt=8>

click this and don't worry, the iPad app isn't an iPhone app with 2X.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, just clicked that exact link with my iPad and once I authenticate with
Apple it says "the item you tried to buy is no longer available"

My rant however is that Google, in general, hasn't made strong product
offerings out of their core products for the tablet experience. I could see
not investing initially when it was unclear if tablets were a fad or not but
it is now well past the point where people should be arguing that they are
'just a fad' (I don't know that anyone does any more, just saying that if they
did, it would be silly) and Google can (and has) executed really well in the
past in response to things that could be solved by pushing out more ECMAscript
code to the web site. I really wish that selector at the bottom of the web
interface to gmail was "Mobile * Tablet * Desktop" not just "Mobile * Desktop"

~~~
untog
Gmail is great on Android tablets.

There might be an overarching desire to not make the Gmail experience _too_
good on the iPad.

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davidcollantes
This is not quite right.

Gmail isn't great on _any_ Android device. If you have only used Android, it
might seem great. But after you try the built-in iOS client, your standards
will raise a bit (not intending to offend!).

In my experience, nothing that Google has produced for the mobile platform(s)
is great.

~~~
lotso
Couldn't you say the same thing about Apple? Almost every one of their apps is
bested by some third party app.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Is there any serious mail (not GMail) client for iOS except for Apple's own
and Sparrow? And it's hard for me to invest in Sparrow now.

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brianlovin
I finally reinstalled now that they support multiple accounts - but really? No
unified inbox? Sparrow still has a leg-up, in my opinion, despite being out of
the dev cycle for a few months now.

~~~
angryasian
In what cases is unified inbox relevant ? I don't like to mix my personal
emails with my work emails. Did sparrow make a clear distinction between which
accounts the email was from ?

~~~
dorian-graph
It's relevant for those who do not care about such delineations and find it
more efficient or so. I like having the unified inbox for several reasons such
as being able to get see a quick overview of my personal/university/work
accounts and act relatively to them. Sometimes though I'll switch into one
account alone.

~~~
angryasian
i sort of get it, but I switch the tone of how I respond depending on which of
my accounts the email is received. Its seems more troublesome to look through
them all and try to figure out after the fact.

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gsharma
Way better than the first version. Still missing things Sparrow is good at:
1\. Send & Archive button/setting 2\. Option for 'Delete' _and_ 'Archive' on
swiping an email in the inbox. 3\. Hold to mark as read/unread for an email.

~~~
BryanB55
Agree. I havent been able to download the Gmail app yet but I always thought
the swipe to be able to archive or delete was really useful. Send & Archive
was great as well. I've been slowly looking for a new mail client on iphone
lately because it seems like Sparrow is much slower to receive mail than the
standard mail app.

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Osmium
So is this the fruit of their Sparrow acquisition? Or is this unrelated?

~~~
ryanglasgow
It appears to be unrelated. The lead Gmail iOS designer, Chanpory Rith, has
been at Google working on this for most of the year. Not sure about the tech.

<http://dribbble.com/shots/843203-Gmail-2-0-Multi-login>

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malyk
Of course, the blog post seriously breaks when viewed on an iPhone (and
rotated from landscape to portrait) and breaks the back button. Lame.

Otherwise the app update looks pretty good.

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gfodor
Welp, two showstoppers for me over the native iOS mail. First, it looks like
to check my mail I need to toggle between all my accounts. There is no unified
inbox. Second, Priority Inbox is not supported beyond having a separate folder
for "Important and Unread." On GMail proper, priority items go to the top and
are marked accordingly, the Inbox unread count is the _priority_ unread count,
and hence I tend to leave non-priority items unread to get to inbox zero. So,
iOS experience if you are a priority inbox user is completely broken unless I
am missing something.

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gte910h
I wonder if they fixed the constant notification spam on this one.

~~~
acdha
Nope - it's still all or nothing. Hope you don't get much mail…

~~~
gte910h
Well thanks for saving me time from installing this POS

They even send LOCAL notifications to override my notifications preferences
for no notifications.

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AdamGibbins
> You can now login to up to five Google Accounts

Why a limit as low as 5?

~~~
ComputerGuru
I think the real question is, why a limit at all?

I can understand a limit of 1: it means the software was not designed to
handle more than one account. State gets conflated, the software goes awry,
and all hell breaks loose.

But as soon as you support more than one, I can't see any reason to cap that
at 5 - or any other number, for that matter.

~~~
mronge
Probably performance reasons on mobile. Past 5 large accounts the app probably
starts to get slow

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adnans
Disappointed that Google's own application doesn't support 2-step
authentication and application specific password.

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ropiku
What do you mean ? I seemed like web login to me. I got asked for my username
and password then my token.

~~~
adnans
I was asked for my normal password and not an application specific password.

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antoncohen
That's the way 2-step auth works. If you have 2-step auth enabled, and the
application supports 2-step it will prompt for your username, normal password,
and a one-time token. If the application doesn't support 2-step you have to
generate an application specific password (which is a random string). The
application specific passwords are only for clients that don't support 2-step
(like IMAP and XMPP clients).

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mulligan
Nice, it finally has multi account support, which was the big reason I was
still using the mobile web version.

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evo_9
So did they just buy Sparrow to shutter it? Or for a talent grab? Why wouldn't
they rebrand a full native app (that kicks ass too) and run with that?

Not taking anything from this, it's very nice too, but I would have preferred
they left Sparrow alone if they didn't intend on using it at all going
forward.

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rootinier
It's much nicer than the previous version. But still, why would you use it?
The standard mail client along with Google Sync (Exchange) does the job quite
good. I don't like having two apps for mailing and I'm sure many of you have a
second mail account that is not Gmail (for Google Apps).

~~~
mootothemax
_But still, why would you use it? The standard mail client along with Google
Sync (Exchange) does the job quite good._

I still can't find a way to have at the same time both push support _and_ the
ability to star/flag messages on the phone and have them starred in the
browser.

Now they have support for multiple accounts, I'll be giving the Gmail app an
in-depth try.

Edit: that said, if anyone _does_ know how to set up starring and push support
at the same time, I'm all ears!

~~~
EdJiang
Using the flag feature on my iPhone stars the email. I'm using the Exchange
method of connecting to email.

~~~
mootothemax
Do you have push notifications turned on as well? For some reason it seems
that I can't have both at the same time.

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jhaile
Can't access the app in the app store.

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ldn_tech_exec1
After swiping right for hours, I have found that this is sadly only available
in the US.

What I really liked about Sparrow was the "hold to mark as read/unread", tap
title to see all emails in convo, swipe up/down for next/prev, and the unified
inbox. If it has all those, I would consider it.

~~~
SimonRain
I couldn't find it in the app store but I did find it by click ing on one of
the apps made by Google, then scrolled at the bottom and clicked on >
Developer info and it was down the list.

It might be because it's not yet available to all in the App Store yet.

It happens to me some times when I submit an update of an app to the App
Store. I get the update a few moments after receiving the "Ready for Sale"
status from iTunes Connect but then my partner only got the update in the App
Store a few hours later.

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dinedal
Why oh why must blogspot.com break the _back_ button, of all things?

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micah63
Pretty good update, 3 gripes:

1 - No contacts, I know you can use native app, but I want them in gmail

2 - No groups, can't send a message to a group

3 - Autocapitalization turned on, overrides iOS settings

Conclusion, no better than native app.

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ommunist
Where is "Press for human support" button?

~~~
TylerE
Right below the Buy Subscription button.

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andrewkkirk
Is the Google+ integration as evident as the web client?

I really don't want the distraction of G+ inside my mobile clients.

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twodayslate
Now I just have to wait for a jailbreak tweak so I can make this my default
mail app on iPhone...

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einarlove
Looks great! Hope the Sparrow team they acquired will put out a new OSX app
for Gmail soon.

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hcarvalhoalves
They just "acquired" Sparrow because it was an app that used their infra-
structure, but bypassed Google Ads completely (showing their own ads in the
free version instead).

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DannyBee
Uh, no.

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jaytaylor
FWIW the last time I used Gmail from a webkit-based mobile browser it worked
very nicely.

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g-garron
Now with this and Chrome for iPad. I think I prefer an ipad over an Android
Tablet ;)

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blario
Still can't mark emails important or not important. Disappointed...

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CoachRufus87
this app looks great, but there could be fewer clicks when it comes to account
switching

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hcarvalhoalves
Dear Google,

That's what you bought Sparrow for?

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MrDrone
I really wish it had a "Mark all as read" button. Until then, I'll stick with
Sparrow.

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kamakazizuru
cant seem to update or re-download it!

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capo
If the update hasn't propagated your way still and you're getting an error try
deleting it then reinstall using this link:
<https://itunes.apple.com/app/gmail/id422689480?mt=8>

~~~
xbryanx
I am still getting a "The item you tried to buy is no longer available." error
with this link. I've never installed the GMail app before.

