

Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again) - cleverjake
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/11/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.html

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zbowling
Spoiler Alert: It sucks.

It's a web view and it's an amazing hack to make a web view almost "feel"
native but it fails. It doesn't fail nearly as hard as the Netflix app, but
it's still not the greatest experience. If it wasn't for the fact I get push
notifications I would probably uninstall it.

When will people learn that using UIWebView's and faking the experience of
native is only a 90% solution? Sure if gets you there quickly but it will cost
you trying to hack around the bugs and edge cases to have an almost barely
acceptable user experience (and most of those issues are often solved for you
for free in the native toolkit).

It's just generally a bad idea to write apps like this.

Now when it comes to pure web apps, I hold out hope that we can have great
experiences everywhere. I don't believe anything and everything needs an app
(content, books, business websites, etc). That is were the mobile web fits in.
But please don't try to use these kinds of frameworks wrapped in a UIWebView
and try to ship it as a _cough_ native _cough_ app.

This quote fits so well for these kinds of apps:

“ The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development
time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the
development time. ” - Tom Cargill

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cmelbye
If you use Google Sync and the native Mail client, you can get "push
notifications" for your email too.

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blaenk
Is it just me, or do the notifications only work when the device is not
locked? If I lock my device and I get an email, it doesn't vibrate and show me
the notification. Either that or notifications aren't consistently sent.

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cmelbye
Check your Notification settings. Settings -> Notifications -> Mail. Make sure
"View in Lock Screen" is enabled.

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rwc
I'm disappointed Google didn't take advantage of their opportunity to go back
to the drawing board on this one. The user experience of a web wrapper can't
compare to a native app.

~~~
natrius
The animations are choppy, but if the browser were more capable, I don't see
what the barrier to a good user experience would be.

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davidcollantes
Right now, using the built-in mail app on iOS I get email, calendar, and
address book synchronization. The new Gmail app offers only email, right? Why
should I use it instead then? Could someone explain that? Thanks!

~~~
pwthornton
Search is the only reason to keep it around. It's a great way to search
through your Gmail. The built-in mail app doesn't search that well, especially
stuff on the server.

Beyond that, I find the built-in mail app to be lightyears better than the
Gmail app. I'll be using the built-in app as my main app, with the Gmail app
on the side for certain searches.

When Sparrow finally comes to iOS, I may switch to that. They get how to make
a good Gmail app, unlike the people who make Gmail.

~~~
smackfu
Server-side search doesn't work at all with my GMail, set up as an Exchange
account on my iPhone. It's the main reason I need to use the web app today.

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gkoberger
I'm in the minority, however I actually like it. It's not perfect, but I don't
seem to find the fact that they're using UIWebView nearly as "unusable" as
everyone else does.

My only complaint is that the push notifications don't let you show a banner,
and they don't seem to be showing up in the Notifications Center or Lock
Screen. All that happens is I get a sound and a badge.

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pkamb
Is there anything preventing some random developer from releasing a native iOS
GMail app? I basically just want an "Archive" button and for it to always be
in-sync with the cloud. Does anything like this exist?

~~~
ansy
The included iOS email client does what you want.

If you configure as Exchange the emails are pushed to you instead of pulled.
Use m.google.com as the Exchange server. Also, the trash icon doesn't actually
delete anything. It sends the message to your archive. This is the preferred
way because it is push and also syncs the contact list with Google.

Alternatively, if you configure the included client as Gmail it will use an
archive icon instead of the trash can, but it is not push enabled. You will
have to pull every 15 minutes. You wouldn't get the contact syncing.

You may need to recreate your email account to get the behavior you want if
you you made it as IMAP before Exchange and Gmail were options.

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forbes
I find the standard Mail app painfully slow over 3G for checking for mail. So
far, the gmail app seems much, much faster. The UI will take some getting used
to though.

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caillou
I was really looking forward to using __multiple accounts __in this app.
Unfortunately this is __not supported __. Yet?

~~~
dh0913
Not that I could see. I installed it and looked for multiple accounts, but
couldn't find anything.

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DrHankPym
I'd rather have a better Google Talk app for iOS.

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inexplicable
While I'm with you, I use <https://imo.im/> on my iPad (no iPhone) and its
been working pretty well so far.

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lparry
Wow, I heard it was so bad that they pulled it, it must have really stank
before cause its still terrible now. Horrid black colour scheme (aka 90's
teenage webpage scheme), slow, unresponsive, menus flow past the edge of the
screen.

This doesn't really sell me if they're trying to show me what I'm missing by
not using android.

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ninjastar99
Wow. Two weeks later and they STILL messed this up? I'm only getting sound /
vibration notifications. Impressively bad. How many people are working on this
project? Follow up question: how many people are working on _testing_ this
project?

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inthewoods
I can't get any notifications on the lock screen or via the pull-down....

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weixiyen
I get a blank loading screen for about 5 min, then some random sound on my
phone. A lot of connection issues :( - sticking with the default mail app for
now.

