Gmail gets updated for iPhone and Android

Promises 3-second load times on newer smartphones

27 October 2009 10:43 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Google has unveiled a new version of the Gmail web interface for the iPhone and Android handsets. The last edition was released back in April, but since then the company has made a whole host of improvements, making the mobile version nearly as feature-complete as its desktop equivalent.

Google says: "Over the last six months, we've added a lot: mute, label management, keyboard shortcuts, smart links, an outbox, and the ability to move messages (label and archive in one step)".

"Some new features, like swipe-to-archive and auto-expanding compose boxes, take advantage of these mobile phones' unique properties. We also made address auto-complete faster, enhanced refresh capabilities, and sped up loading so Gmail for mobile starts in under three seconds on newer smartphones".

To get the update, you'll need to go to Gmail.com in your mobile browser, and when we tested it on an HTC Hero we had to download and install a small amount of data, presumably to enable the speed enhancements and offline support.

Unfortunately it doesn't hook into the notifications section of Android devices - they take you to the platform's default, but limited, Gmail app instead. We'd expect improvements to the default Gmail app in future Android builds, like Donut and Eclair.

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