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Why Is There No Native GMail on the iPhone?
- Thread starter jw nyc
- Start date
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What is wrong with the GMail through the Mail App? It works exactly how you would expect an e-mail system work. Also... WHY? If you need full GMail access, use Safari.
TEG
TEG
Native GMAIL is built into the native Mail app. You can also set up GMAIL as an exchange account using the native mail app, which many report being an excellent choice.
Agree that the Google functions perform very nicely when you set up Gmail as an exchange account.
Jimbo
(coming from a Droid)
Jimbo
(coming from a Droid)
I can say with certainty that my Gmail is more reliable on the iPhone exchange server than it was on my Android phone.
I would rather not have another app to handle more mail, just setup gmail as exchange and you have 1 app running all your mail instead of 2, if you have multiple accounts. I have it on mine and it work perfectly and syncs with contacts which is great. Server is m.google.com
I guess that we are all illogical, and you are the only one that is logical. Exchange and IMAP both work great, in the mail app, and I suppose that you could even set it up as POP, if you wanted to. What features would you like that you can't get with either of those options.
Who uses Safari for Gmail, when you can set Gmail up in the mail app as Exchange or IMAP.
How so?
Try to keep in mind that this is your CELLPHONE we are talking about. It's supposed to just bridge the time between your office and home. The iPhone native mail app, set up as an exchange server, more then satisfies every mobile email need a person could want.
I understand what the OP is talking about, though. If you're a heavy Gmail user, there's no way thru Apple's email app to assign labels, stars, etc. You can move an email to an IMAP folder that corresponds to a Gmail label, but the nice thing about true Gmail labels is that a single email can have more than one.
I could live without the above if there were a way to at least flag an email like one can in the MacOS email app. That would be very useful for me and could tide me over until I opened up Safari on my desktop. Hopefully such a thing is coming to iOS 5 (or 4.5...).
I could live without the above if there were a way to at least flag an email like one can in the MacOS email app. That would be very useful for me and could tide me over until I opened up Safari on my desktop. Hopefully such a thing is coming to iOS 5 (or 4.5...).
I HATE how the apple mail client adds "RE:" to every email you reply to. If you have an extended conversation with someone, you'll end up with "RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE" across the subject line of the email
the gmail client is one of the big things i miss from android
the gmail client is one of the big things i miss from android
Good point made. Gmail on iOS has a long way to go and since Safari is not a good mobile browser, it's not the best choice to assess full Gmail.
Google seems to thinks so.
Go ahead and get the Google app for the iPhone. Open 'mail' in it and see what it does. It just sends you to Safari. Google apparently thinks that's good enough.
At least, I've never heard of them trying to make a mail app and having it get rejected. Thus I have to assume that they think Safari and the built-in 'Mail' app are the 2 best choices and they see no reason to make a 3rd.
You have to admit that you're in the minority when you're arguing against the actual company that's being affected here.
Uhm, no.. The fact Google mobile app redirects Mail to Safari browser doesn't mean much.. There is no way Apple would allow 3rd party app to replace system Mail app, so Google never bothered with "proper" Gmail app for iOS.
The reason why no 3rd party app can be a proper mail client is because Apple system Mail app has special privileges. Being first party system app - it can run in background, and it can run ActiveSync. No 3rd party mail client would be able to do that, so that's why we'll never see a real Gmail client (with proper label support and all). Chalk it up to the life inside of Apple's walled garden.
But you can make web-kit browser apps.
Why hasn't Google made an app that's basically mobile-g-mail in a browser window but given it push notices and saved states and different viewing modes and stuff like that? They could easily make something that's like gmail in Safari but better.
It should be fine by Apple's rules. The only reason I can think of them not doing that is that they'd prefer people to use the native mail app.
That was my original point. That they think that's good enough, apparently.
I don't think Safari is powerful enough to run services like push notifications.
I agree I hate the mail app. It's so basic and unreadable. I pretty much use the gmail through the web browser since it's so much faster to read mail and navigate through folders.
I agree I hate the mail app. It's so basic and unreadable. I pretty much use the gmail through the web browser since it's so much faster to read mail and navigate through folders.