Google's iOS Gmail App Pulled

olsmeister writes "Google removed their new GMail app from the App Store due to a programming error that caused an error message related to the aps-environment entitlement string when the app was started and also caused the notifications not to function correctly. They are working to get the app fixed and are going to have the new one ready soon."

Comments

Not the worst problem...

[guinness_duck]

Sadly the error message wasn't the worst problem that app had. No multiple accounts. No use of the Important Message feature. I've heard tags could be accessed by swiping right but that never worked for me and seems t have been an issue for many other users as well. Not to mention the whole app felt like a rushed kludge job of half baked ideas, and very inconsistant user interface. Not to mention it was far slower than just using the web site or Apple's own mail app. I think it needs a lot more work before they bother to resubmit it to the iOS app store.

Re:Not the worst problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't get into details, but I'm relatively familiar with Google's internal culture and the people they hire. And my general conclusion is that Google is absolutely the new Microsoft. Google's loaded with smart, talented, motivated people, but upper management generally lacks taste. By and large they're engineers and scientists without any real creative sensibility or vision. (And they don't appear to be good at monetizing products, with one Big Exception, and a couple of very small ones.)

Within five seconds of seeing the app the first time I thought "it's 50/50 whether this either lacks multiple account support, or has just made it non-obvious," because both were moves they'd absolutely make. Taking Marissa Mayer off of UI was something they should have done many years ago, but they don't seem to have done anything much better since then, sadly.

The primary reason they launched this app--the primary reason they even got into the mobile OS game--is because they're terrified of trends that reduce the share of ad space relative to total activity. Little to do with wishing they could make the kinds of mobile phone contract revenues Apple was (and is). They saw that mobile users were spending more time in apps and less time using a browser, and launched Android. And given how robust iOS's built-in Gmail client is becoming, they saw potential problems down the road with their (present) approach of trying to choke iOS by undersupporting it with no app. (Releasing a half-arsed app isn't a solution to that problem, mind you, but that's my point.)

Neither Larry or Sergey are great product creators. Really smart guys with many sound, guiding principles? Absolutely. But if this were a sport, a yes-but-what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? approach would have the GM looking frantically for new talent to bring in within the next season or two.

The problem is, they're continually looking for ways to make their One Solidly Profitable Product more profitable. Gmail? To serve ads. Android? To serve ads. Sooner or later they become the computing equivalent of televised news networks, existing mostly to fill space between ads. Like I said, they have better fundamental ideals than the other major players in the space (which isn't saying much given that their primary competition in the space is Yahoo and Microsoft), so Google's run will continue for some time, but Larry and Sergey don't Get It to the degree that people think they do. If they did, the app we saw today would have been seen a year ago, and it would have already been far better back then than today's joke of a release.

Re:Not the worst problem...

[rflii]

You think Apple let the buggy app get through so they could say "Hey, look at this crap. We know how to make a mail app for your iPhone"

Re:Why is this news?

[jo_ham]

I think it's more to head off the inevitable "It's gone from the store!!!! Apple deleted it!!!!! Evil!! Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!" that would result if they just silently took it down for coding work.

By all accounts it really lived up to the name "beta" - even if Google's version of "beta" tends to be a little more polished.

Re:Walled Garden

[Altus]

Wow dude, wow.

Did you not bother to read the summary or is your blind obsessive hatred and ire just so powerful that you had to post something incredibly stupid due to some automatic reflex?

Re:Who needs an iOS GMail app?

[BitZtream]

Use exchange sync instead of IMAP with gmail, you get push notifications as well as cal and contact syncing if you want. Specifically, use the Exchange option in Mail, not the IMAP or Google Mail options.

Gmail supports IMAP IDLE for push, but the iPhone mail client only supports push on Exchange for some retarded reasons I've yet to determine.

Failure to communicate?

[rubypossum]

It seems like Google has been having problems communicating within its own departments lately. They're just doing too many things at once. It's like watching a sleep-deprived juggler get thrown a few extra chainsaws during their act - not a pretty sight.

Re:I guess

[bonch]

I was curious how Slashdot would spin this terrible app release. I should have guessed that it was going to be pinned on Apple's testers.