That blog post breaks scrolling behavior on iPad and iPhone. Amazing.
Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
51–60 of 118 posts
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#52Shows exactly how far apart the distance between native apps and web apps really is. People were impressed with the GMail web app when it launched; this is basically a skin around that same app and they're recoiling from it in horror.
When it launched, the mobile Gmail app was great. Unfortunately they decided to break scrolling by poorly reimplementing it in JS and it's all downhill since then.
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you used the Google Voice app for the iPhone? It's literally the worst app I've ever seen in my life. Crashed constantly, won't refresh from the server, will close your text box randomly while typing a message (clearing your message), will fail to make calls frequently, and since I upgraded to iOS5 now has signed me out and crashes immediately when trying to sign back in so it's been rendered completely unusable…
Did you update the Google Voice app? These all used to be problems, but their latest release resolved them all for me.
This is true - the Google Voice app is now much much better, but it is worth pointing out that there were tons of bugs that weren't fixed for over a year, like:
* freezing irrecoverably when opening the app/going to inbox very often
* losing all the text you've typed when anything causes the textfield to lose focus
* things like gaining network connectivity causing said textfield to lose focus
Perhaps this qualifies as ad hominem, but this experience was biblically awful and from a major software company. Seeing how this new Gmail app is a bunch of Web views and needlessly non-standard widgets (=> part of the worst dredge of apps), it makes me start to feel pretty cynical about their iOS strategy.
Then again, taken the experience using the Android browser while developing mobile websites, maybe it's an institutional inability to develop polished mobile applications.
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you used the Google Voice app for the iPhone? It's literally the worst app I've ever seen in my life. Crashed constantly, won't refresh from the server, will close your text box randomly while typing a message (clearing your message), will fail to make calls frequently, and since I upgraded to iOS5 now has signed me out and crashes immediately when trying to sign back in so it's been rendered completely unusable…
Hanlon's Razor. There was a login bug with iOS 5, and Google pulled the iPhone app from the Appstore until it was fixed. It's been back for a little while now, and stable. The Android version is far better, though, due to its OS integration. I don't think Apple would ever allow what it does on Android.
They've had the iOS 5 beta available since June and they didn't bother to fix it before the actual release. If that doesn't say that they don't care, I don't know what else.
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
StackOverflow suggests that they neglected to enable push notifications in their production code-signing certificate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2452086/no-valid-aps-envi...
Isn't this sort of a sanity-level thing you'd check in QA? You know, install the app and boot it?
Or in the vaunted app review process?
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#56Apparently not available in Germany. The AppStore search function only finds third party apps and the AppStore link from the blog post opens the AppStore and shows the unhelpful error message "Your request could not be completed".
Also not available for me, in the U.S., browsing the app store from my iPod Touch.
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you used the Google Voice app for the iPhone? It's literally the worst app I've ever seen in my life. Crashed constantly, won't refresh from the server, will close your text box randomly while typing a message (clearing your message), will fail to make calls frequently, and since I upgraded to iOS5 now has signed me out and crashes immediately when trying to sign back in so it's been rendered completely unusable…
Hanlon's Razor. There was a login bug with iOS 5, and Google pulled the iPhone app from the Appstore until it was fixed. It's been back for a little while now, and stable. The Android version is far better, though, due to its OS integration. I don't think Apple would ever allow what it does on Android.
The only way to get that integration is to either use Sprint or jailbreak and use http://gvexts.appspot.com/sms/sms.html
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this sort of a sanity-level thing you'd check in QA? You know, install the app and boot it?
Or in the vaunted app review process?
This actually is part of the appstore review process (I do this for my job). However, we've had apps slip through before. I'm not sure entirely why this happens, since the checks for missing entitlements or incorrect signing should be automatic, but it does on occasion.
This is a problem with Apples review process as much as anything else, since you can't test the properly signed release version of the app until you publish it to the appstore for all to see.
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#59I tried downloading it just now- says the app is "no longer available."
Re: Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
#60Apparently not available in Germany. The AppStore search function only finds third party apps and the AppStore link from the blog post opens the AppStore and shows the unhelpful error message "Your request could not be completed".
Also not available for me, in the U.S., browsing the app store from my iPod Touch.
Me too. Both searching and browsing the productivity category. I wonder what gives?