Google Overhauls Gmail For Mobile

Google pulled out all the stops and really tackled its Java-based mobile Gmail client. Along with speeding things up, it introduced a host of new features that make it better than ever.

The Gmail client that is available to BlackBerries is decent and works, but considering the host device, it was often better to just simply attach your Gmail account to the BlackBerries emailing abilities.

Google decided to up the ante a bit and has reworked Gmail for Mobile, calling it a 2.0 release. Google says its focus for this version was to make the experience faster and more reliable. It re-architected the entire client to push all the processing to the background, greatly improve the client-side caching scheme and optimize every bottleneck piece of code its engineers came across. Google says it changed its fundamental assumption about the network. It re-thought every action that you might perform with the app and tried to solve for the case where there is no signal.

The result is a general improvement in performance. It should be faster, have smoother scrolling and not freeze when trying to perform actions. Google also added suppurt to manage multiple Gmail accounts. Google says that if you have both a Gmail and Google Apps email account, you can easily switch between them quickly. You will no longer have to use two different mobile apps to access personal and work emails.

Users will also be able to save multiple draft emails on their phone, as well as take advantage of shortcut keys for faster navigation from the keyboard.

Lastly, Google has taken GMail for Mobile offline. Users will be able to compose and read most recent emails even when there is no signal. Also, any outgoing messages will be saved in the outbox on the phone and sent automatically when you're back in coverage.

These are all welcome improvements. Right now, they are only available for BlackBerries and phones using Java platforms. Google said it will support other platforms in the future.