GoogleSync right from the iPhone Mail app. It licenses ActiveSync from Microsoft and fills up your lone Exchange slot on the iPhone but it does provide push if that's what you need (even if it's been a tad error prone). Gmail Web App from Mobile Safari. It supports all the Gmail goodness like labels and stars and thanks to HTML5 it even has local storage and an almost native app-like feeling to it, even if it's not a snappy as the real thing. As a spam-filter for another email account. May sound strange, but some people merely forward their Gmail to a different IMAP or webmail account, using Google's excellent spam filtration but wanting a different service or front end for the actual mail. And if you have any pro-level or ninja tips for iPhone Gmail, let us know!
I hope this isn’t a feature, I found it rather annoying to have to flick down to send all the time. Tapping the little icon with three lines (I don’t think we have a name for that icon yet), will open the navigation panel where you can jump to all your labels/folders. This is also where you tap to switch accounts.
Search is, actually, very easy in Gmail. Just tap the search box, type in the term and hit search. I found it pretty easy to accidentally tap the search area and suddenly my email was “gone”. Of course it wasn’t really gone, I just had to cancel out of search.
You can’t just send and receive email all the time without managing it some how. Even if you just trash an email now and then. I found managing email in Gmail for iOS to be easy and made sense most of the time. Above every message are three icons, Archive, Trash, and a menu (the triangle).
Archive and Trash work with one tap. Staring (or removing a Star) an email is as easy as tapping the Star icon next to the subject. To apply a Label, tap the Triangle and then Labels. You’ll notice there is no option for creating (or managing) Labels in the app.
Maybe that will come in future updates. One of the new features in Gmail for iOS 2.0 is the ability to add, use, and switch between multiple accounts. When Gmail for iOS came out a year ago, I loved the app, but I couldn’t really switch to it because I had too many accounts I wanted in one place. Now with multiple accounts, I can use Gmail all the time, well almost—more about that later.
Let’s get to adding accounts. Adding a new account couldn’t be simpler. Tap the icon to get to the navigation area, then tap your name and you’ll see the big plus in a dashed box. Tap that and you can enter your account info up to four more Gmail or Gmail for Domains accounts. Switching between accounts is just like (as you can see from above) adding adding an account and you just tap the account you want to jump to.
You can also see that I have an unread message in one account. Yes, I think this is going to be one of the main complaints about Gmail for iOS—no unified inbox. You need to jump from account to account to check, reply, and manage email. Will Google add this in the future, Maybe as an option,
Who knows, but Sparrow and Mail have it (not to mention pretty much all email app that handle multiple accounts), so hopefully Google will add it soon. Taking a moment to hop over to Gmail on the web might be a good idea. Since Gmail for iOS (by default) uses things like your signature, default sending account, etc straight from Gmail proper, you might not have an updated signature. If you want to have a mobile-only sig or even turn on vacation notification, you can do that from the settings.
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