After stumbling out of the gate and getting pulled, the official Gmail app for iOS is back. I've been playing with it on my iPad for the last hour and really like a lot of its features, but as a Gmail power user I'm somewhat disappointed. Read on for my first impressions.
On the plus side, it offers the same look and feel as the recent Gmail redesign. All the lovely Gmail features like labels, stars, archiving, etc. can be found. The touch points also seems larger and more accurate than the HTML 5 version accessible through Safari. If you only use one Gmail account, the official app is the way to go.
Unfortunately for Gmail power users, multiple account support isn't available. This is immensely disappointing. I currently use two Gmail accounts and three Google Apps email accounts. On Android, it's easy to manage and juggle all five of these accounts, while retaining the ability to label, star, archive, etc. Sadly, there still isn't a good way to do this on iOS.
The official was pulled because the notification system was broken. The updated app now has a notification system that's partially broken. When a new email comes in, you hear an alert...and that's it. You won't find Gmail notifications in the Notification Center. The various Notification Center settings are there, but none of it is working yet. I expect this to get fixed quickly, but it's still a stupid error on Google's part.
Lastly, I was hoping for an offline mode. I'd gladly give up some of my iPad's 64GB to get some offline functionality.
Stay tuned for Padvance's full review of the official Gmail app for iPad. If you're currently using the app, I'd love to hear about your experiences with it.
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