Web Developers

Faster Gmail On Your iPhone And No One Will Care

Posted by on Apr 7, 2009 | 7 Comments

Speaking as a new iPhone user myself, I find this latest news about Gmail getting a new “engine” for speedier performance on the iPhone and Android to nice, but fail to see the point.

See, I feel like this is more value to Google developers as both of the aforementioned phones already possess great default applications for tackling email content. So I am not clear as to why all of this effort has been put into this when truly, a solid solution was already out there?

Is it because ads are coming soon, so Gmail’s own code needs to compete with the native email fetching applications? It’s all I am able to come up with as to me, I have found no compelling reason to get too excited about this. Don’t get me wrong, speeding up Google.com on these phones or YouTube is fantastic! But Gmail, not really sure why I care?

  • http://mickeleh.blogspot.com Michael Markman

    I certainly will notice. I punted the native iPhone mail app to a back page and now use gmail as my main mail client on iPhone. Gmail gives me searchable access to my entire gmail history, as well as a very useful set of labels and filters.

  • http://www.michaelmanning.org/ Michael Manning

    Hi Matt,
    In essence I tend to agree. The only thing I can say is that I have signed into my G1 with my personal details and access work Google apps via the web browser.

    So from that standpoint the web improvements are great for work communications.

    The other aspect is that with a lot of smartphones the local apps can be heavier in terms of resource requirements and the better mobile web UI’s become the better for everyone and every handset.

    Here’s hoping Google push out these features to other mobile OS’s as well.

    Cheers,
    Michael

  • Matthew Hillman

    Surely any improvement in speed, UI or any other aspect of Google’s mobile web app’s should be welcomed. I accept the native app’s on the phone’s are excellent but to some people native support for conversation view, stars and labels to name a few things, are a big draw thus explaining the significance of the redesign.

  • frost

    Really??
    Allow me to list a couple items…

    - landscape mode possible in gmail so you can type without some other application
    - the ability to search mail (imagine that!)
    - conversations threaded properly (mail just duplicates them)
    - a single threaded sent box
    - wonderful archive feature

    Like the first comment I also punted my mobile mail app to the last page. Mobile mail offers speed and that is it! Apple let google or us devs make a native gmail app, mail is lacking in many ways!!

  • Techgeek564

    Reason why, not to intentionaly attack any group, is that alot of people there that has nothing to do have fun complaining when really they should be finding somethings better to do instead of ending up on TruTV’s Worlds Dumbest Protestors. If they would just accept things then I’m sure there would be more people there than there is now.

  • Jsafire

    Interesting. AT&T did not install any new boxes in my neighborhood to support U-verse (and we do have it.) Though, since this neighbor hood is only 20-25 years old, maybe the existing boxes were big enough. SF is a different story.

  • http://profiles.google.com/bryonbella Bryon Bella

    I can see why these boxes are being protested if you have seen any of the pictures they are huge. I wouldn’t want to put up with the construction that will lay all of the fiber optic lines either if there isn’t already some laid down. My DISH Network employee service uses only one small dish for HD which is less cumbersome for the streets and many times it is in the back of the house anyway.