iOS: At long last: You can now download a dedicated Gmail app for your iPhone from the iTunes App Store. Native, Gmail-like interface for your email on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, here we come.The iPhone’s official Mail.app is a fine email client, but it has never played completely nice with Gmail. The Gmail app promises to give you the full email experience on the iPhone without hassling with the idiosyncrasies of marrying Mail.app with Gmail. Here’s the feature rundown:
- Push notifications and sounds give you alerts when new messages show up in your inbox (naturally).
- Search your entire inbox from one universal search box. This seems like a no-brainer, but you couldn’t do that from Mail.app unless you headed to the All Mail label.
- Autocomplete from Gmail contacts or your iPhone’s address book means that if you’ve managed your contacts better in either place, you can choose whichever you prefer. (My iPhone contacts are synced to my iPhone anyway, so it’s a wash.)
UPDATE: Looks like Google has pulled the Gmail app from the App Store, to be re-released once they’ve fixed the above-mentioned notifications bug:
The iOS app we launched today contained a bug which broke notifications and caused you to see an error message when first opening the app. We’ve removed the app while we correct the problem, and we’re working to bring you a new version soon. In the meantime, everyone who’s already installed the app can continue to use it.
We want to bring you a great Gmail experience, and we’re sorry we messed up here.
Gmail for iPhone [iTunes App Store via Official Gmail Blog]
ThatGuy
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 6:32 AMNot available in the Australian iTunes store as at 6.30am AEDST
Angus Kidman
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 6:37 AMGoogle pulled it after discovering a bug.
Riz
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 2:32 PMI was lucky to grab that 3:00 AM when I was doing on call stuff. Anoying ting is the error message which pops everytime you open this app. Other than that it is a great app.
Mike
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7:22 AMI got the app and can confirm that you got an error message as soon as using the app for the first time.
Mike
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 8:17 PMIt’s not storing any of my email locally, which is useless for referring to content when I go out of signal range. For the most part it’s just acting like the email part of the Google app with a slightly better interface.
Rich
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 12:41 PMDoes anyone know if it will let you use multiple Gmail/Google Apps accounts?
Riz
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 2:34 PM@Rich, I can’t see any option of using multiple gmail accounts.
leslie
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 1:46 PMWhy oh why is gmail app not available in australia store……….still waiting….. hate the iPhone generic one..
Angus Kidman
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 1:51 PMEr, read the post maybe?
Tony
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 7:46 AMDon’t get too upset — I grabbed a copy, and it was one of the worst iOS apps I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. Aside from push notifications, it does nothing that the Gmail mobile web interface does, and has all of it’s bad user interface and design to boot.
Google dropped the ball on this one.
titanium
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 11:35 AMit’s back. It’s nice that I can archive stuff etc and it’s the same on my laptop. (because duh, it’s webmail.)