New Version of Gmail Mobile for iPhone and Android

Google launched an updated version of Gmail for iPhone and Android phones that takes advantage of some advanced features from their browsers. Gmail's mobile site can now be used even when you're offline thanks to iPhone's offline storage and Android's implementation of Gears. "If the data network drops out on you, rest assured that Gmail won't. You'll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose over a flaky, or non-existent, network connection."

Some other enhancements: Gmail loads faster, there's a floating toolbar that includes options like archiving or reporting spam and the interface is more consistent.

"When we make it broadly available, people are going to see this as the first HTML 5 mobile application. It'll be like Gmail in 2004. It was a great watershed moment for Ajax apps," said Google's Vic Gundotra last week. While mobile Gmail is not the first web application that takes advantage of HTML 5 features, it's one of the pioneers.


There's also a new version of Google Calendar that lets you edit events and has an option to cache previously-viewed events. Both updated applications work only for iPhone OS 2.2.1+ and all Android phones.