Gmail has updated its fraught iOS app with some new features. It now supports custom signatures for mobile messages and a vacation responder. It also improves the display of nested labels. For users of Apple’s newest iOS 5 operating system, the push notification sound has changed to make it distinct from other notifications.
The update also adds an unexpected feature that allows users to scribble with colors on a canvas and attach it to a message. It’s a basic paint application that takes advantage of the touch screen, rethinking the way mobile email apps work. Unfortunately, some of the most requested features are still in development. Maybe the ability to scribble will tide users over…
Gmail for iOS launched in November as a more limited app than the one Gmail users on iOS have been waiting for. While it does handle offline messages, and it handles Gmail labels better than the native Apple Mail app, it curiously lacks some features that the mobile Web version has, like multiple account support.
It also launched with a disconcerting notification bug that caused new users to be greeted with an error message. The “bad version” was pulled from the store, and a fix was issued two weeks later.
Since the app is basically just a wrapper for the Web view, it’s not clear why it doesn’t support multiple email accounts, while the Web version does. Perhaps Google would prefer iOS users to use the main, Chrome-like Google App and launch the Web-based Gmail from there.
But hey. It has Scribbles. Read more on the Gmail blog.
Get the Gmail app from the iTunes Store
