GMail On Smartphone

[Kris Kumar]

This morning I was pleasantly surprised when a generous person sent me an invitation for a GMail account. And within minutes of signing up, I was typing gmail.google.com in my Smartphone browser. Couple of weeks ago I had read a rather disappointing post by Ed Hansberry over at PocketPCThoughts.com. (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28942) Undeterred I clicked on the Go softkey, and this is what I saw…

http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/GMAIL2IncompatibleBrowser.jpg http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/GMAIL3IncompatibleBrowser.jpg

It is hard to imagine an innovative company like Google ignoring the mobile devices platform for its revolutionary GMail. I am still counting on them, to come out with a simple yet astounding interface for the mobile devices. Any guesses?

[MajesticNJ]

I would have to say that it's a little too early to lay judgement on them. I'm sure they will make a pda/smartphone friendly version after it comes out of alpha/beta or after the initial rollout.

Just this one man's opinion of course. :)

Fred

[kagayaki1]

While I am the eternal mobile optimist, I stuggle a little to think that Google be able to accomodate a mobile G-Mail any time soon. With G-Mail relying heavily on Javascript, I think it's unlikely they would stray from that backbone just to create a mobile version. Maybe if we could get Java on all our phones...

[Kris Kumar]

With G-Mail relying heavily on Javascript, I think it's unlikely they would stray from that backbone just to create a mobile version. Maybe if we could get Java on all our phones...

That is what has me worried. I can see that the Google folks have used a lot of JavaScript to give the web user the comforts of a regular desktop client, like keyboard shortcuts, auto-complete email addresses in To/CC fields, etc. And I have used it only for a day.

Well lets hope that Microsoft (or ISVs) has plans to implement JavaScript support in the Pocket IE.

[Kris Kumar]

With Microsoft and Yahoo both planning to increase the storage capacity, Google no longer has the winning mantra. It cannot overlook the mobile arena.

[JoshB]

Google has stated that new features. like IMAP/POP3 support and a plain HTML version of the interface, will come along soon enough.

Personally, I want IMAP more than I want a plain HTML version of the page. Who wants to wrestle with a webmail interface in IE on the Smartphone when you can just pipe it into your Inbox?

[Jason Dunn]

POP3/IMAP support is the real solution here - I hope they take this step!

[ixtab1970]

Here's what I recently got from the gmail team:

Hello,

Thank you for your message and your patience. We apologize for the delayed
response. Gmail is experiencing rapid growth. We have been working hard to
keep pace with the popularity of our service while we respond to each
individual message.

Your suggestion is being forwarded to the appropriate team. We certainly
appreciate hearing from Gmail users and encourage you to continue to let
us know how we can improve the Gmail experience.

You might be interested to hear that we are announcing these upcoming
features:

- Automatic forwarding of your email to another account
- Plain HTML version of Gmail
- Import/export Contacts

We hope you enjoy Google's approach to email.

Sincerely,

The Gmail Team

[maximus]

... and lets just say that Gmail is not too 'mobile' friendly ... from the first time I type gmail.google.com and hit [go] on my dell axim, until I actually saw the first webpage, it took around 150 kbytes.

For a person who has to pay GPRS by the kilobytes, 150 kbytes just to see the frontpage is extremely bad.

[BadRap]

I would have to say that it's a little too early to lay judgement on them. I'm sure they will make a pda/smartphone friendly version after it comes out of alpha/beta or after the initial rollout.

Just this one man's opinion of course. :)

Fred

This is my first post here @ Smartphonethoughts. I just bought my first smartphone (SMT 5600) w/ AT&T service. I was previously accessing gmail on my Sony Clie UX50 (Palm based PDA) with a program called Gmail-Lite.

Gmail Lite needs to be installed on a web server. And it basically provides a html only version of Gmail. I have tried it on the SMT5600 and it works great. Sourceforge.net has a few other similiar programs, gmail-lite is the only one I have tried however. I also came across a couple of programs on sourceforge claiming to provide pop3/imap access to gmail.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmail-lite/

Hope this helps until Google does.

[Kris Kumar]

This is my first post here @ Smartphonethoughts. I just bought my first smartphone (SMT 5600) w/ AT&T service. I was previously accessing gmail on my Sony Clie UX50 (Palm based PDA) with a program called Gmail-Lite.

Welcome to the site and thanks for the tip!

I have been using the Google's forwarding service to get my mails delivered to a POP3 (or IMAP) account.

[Jerry Raia]

I have been using the Google's forwarding service to get my mails delivered to a POP3 (or IMAP) account.

Wow didnt even know they had that! It's real nice having that working now :)