
 Gmail on the iPad - wglb
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/gmail-on-ipad.html
======
adriand
This is my favourite part: "we're excited about the upcoming wave of tablet
computers and the possibilities they bring". Upcoming wave of tablet computers
- hint, hint.

How long before the first really killer Android- or Chrome OS-powered tablet?
I bet it won't take nearly as long as it took to launch compelling competitors
to the iPhone.

~~~
mbrubeck
Sadly, I think it will take just as long for the rest of the industry to
really catch up to Apple's new product, at which point Apple will have moved
ahead again. It took more than a year for other smartphone makers to have a
serious answer to the iPod, and in my opinion more than two years (with phones
like the Droid and Nexus One) to bring a product to market that surpasses the
iPhone in some of its own strengths, without sacrificing too much in software
or hardware polish.

Why do I think the same thing will happen with the iPad? Because Apple is
still among the only companies even trying to do world-class software design
and world-class hardware design, and treating the two as a single product.
(Others, with varying levels of success: Nintendo, Palm, Tivo, Nokia, some
divisions of Microsoft.)

Tell any other computer maker that they should introduce a new operating
system, or a software maker that they need to make their own hardware, and
they'll look at you like you're crazy. Sure, there's a big risk of failure,
but it's the only way you'll be able to innovate as radically and successfully
as Apple.

And this saddens me. I think Apple products are great - my first computer was
a Macintosh SE/30 in 1989, and my first programs were written in HyperCard. My
parents are still happy Mac users two decades later - but I am not. I value
open platforms enough to give up the many benefits of Apple's platform for the
very different benefits of open source platforms. (I'm a former Debian
Developer and current Mozilla employee.)

Maybe Google will start designing and making its own Chrome OS hardware
someday. (They already worked closely with HTC on the design of Android phones
like the Dream and Nexus One.) Maybe a hardware maker like Intel will really
go all-in on a new Linux-based product. Maybe I can convince Mozilla that we
need to design our own hardware platform! But until that happens, I think many
aspects of our consumer products will still be trudging along in Apple's
footsteps.

~~~
kalid
Very well put. I don't even know how other comapanies can overtake apple when
they are constantly playing catch up. Google and others are behind in
mindshare, marketshare, app installs, usability, buzz...

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jtaby
Sigh, why do people give Google free passes on the UI left and right?

Scrolling has no momentum, there's no bounce-back, you can't select text in
the email messages, you have to keep loading new messages cause they don't
load nearly enough, etc etc

The fact that nobody here even brings it up says a lot about the quality of
apps that Google fans accept

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wallflower
+1 for i.love.html5@gmail.com being the sample Johnny Appleseed email address
used in the demo screenshot.

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jackowayed
Does anyone know why the Gmail app won't run full-screen when you launch it
from the home screen? It really annoys me that so much of my iPhone's small
screen is taken up by Safari instead of the app.

~~~
Timothee
You can create a bookmark with the following address:

    
    
        javascript:var%20meta=document.createElement(%22meta%22);meta.name=%22apple-mobile-web-app-capable%22;meta.content=%22yes%22;document.getElementsByTagName('head')%5B0%5D.appendChild(meta);
    

Then you would open Safari on Gmail, select this bookmark, and then add it to
your homescreen. Works on iPhone at least. I suppose iPad will work fine.

Note: on an iPhone 2G, a page set up like this loads very slowly compared to
inside Safari. The iPad allegedly being much faster, it might not be a
problem. You do have the issue with external links opening Safari, but with
the iPhone, the difference in screen real-estate is fairly significant.

~~~
jackowayed
Good call! I was thinking that something like that could do it. (My default
thought for that type of thing is a Greasemonkey script, which iPhone Safari
doesn't support.)

Btw, an easier way is just to paste the code into the address bar.

~~~
Timothee
The reason I mention a bookmark is to have it handy anytime you want to save a
page to the homescreen, and because you can then create it from your Mac/PC
and it can sync. Easier than typing it on an iPhone.

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resdirector
On a side-note, it's interesting to observe that the screen shot shows how
easy it is to organize things without Google Wave!

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chacha102
It is remarkably similar to the native email application. However, so was the
iPhone one. Just had a few much needed upgrades like the hovering menu bar.

Oh, and did I mention the threading? I could probably never switch from Gmail
simply because of the threading.

~~~
barrkel
This is deeply mysterious to me. My email client (Forte Agent) has done email
threading for about 15 years. It's much better than Gmail's web interface for
email lists in particular, because it can make them look like newsgroups. You
can watch threads, ignore threads (and subsequent replies), etc.

Do other folks' desktop clients not do this?

~~~
eggnet
I've never seen a mail reader other than gmail that will thread sent mail or
mail from other "folders" from your inbox.

~~~
rgrove
Postbox does this.

~~~
eggnet
Interesting, thank you :)

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quizbiz
I think Google is trying to position itself to have solid market share over
mobile browsing. If you use gmail on the go instead of the Mail app, Google
can give you targeted AdWords ads.

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rgrove
Doesn't seem to be available for Google Apps email accounts yet.

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stcredzero
On the other hand, dialing out from Google Voice on the iPad seems to be
completely broken.

~~~
jrockway
In what way? To initiate dialing, it's just an HTTP post request. Of course,
the real question is what phone you expect to ring when you're on your iPad.

(Hint: go to the mobile site instead of the desktop site. Although the Desktop
site works fine on my Android tablet.)

~~~
stcredzero
Safari doesn't like the returned HTML and nothing happens.

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grandalf
Is it just me or does that look a lot like Microsoft Entourage 2008 ?

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raptrex
I tested this on safari, theres no scrolling

~~~
cmelbye
If you test it on the device that it was actually made for (which is not
Safari with a hacked user agent), you'll find that scrolling works just fine.

