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Gmail Go, a Lightweight Version of Google's Email App, Launched on Android (techcrunch.com)
Google has added a notable addition to its line of "Go" edition apps -- the lightweight apps designed primarily for emerging markets -- with the launch of Gmail Go. From a report: The app, like others in the Go line, takes up less storage space on users' smartphones and makes better use of mobile data compared with the regular version of Gmail. The app also offers standard Gmail features like multiple account support, conversation view, attachments, and push notifications for new messages. It also prioritizes messages from friends and family first, while categorizing promotional and social emails in separate tabs, as Gmail does. But like other Go apps, Gmail Go doesn't consume as much storage space on the device. In fact, according to numerous reports, Gmail Go clocked in at a 9.51 MB download, and takes up roughly 25 MB of space on a device, compared with Gmail's 20.66 MB download, and 47 MB storage space.
E-mail in only 25MB? Wow! That's amazing!
You know, that would have really helped about thirty years ago when my drive was only 500MB.
Actually, that would have sucked thirty years ago, because thirty years ago, e-mail was easily under 5MB of total disk space. I do believe it was often under 3MB, and I'm pretty sure it was possible under 1MB.
It's e-mail. It needn't be complicated.
(oooooh, fancy sorting, that probably needs another 50 KB)
What features do you feel are missing from Gmail ? Which other email service (not client) provides these services ?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Don't worry about memory, just add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS file:
device=himem.sys
Now you can use all that juicy memory over 640KB!
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
So, how does this new app compare to the other, Inbox by Gmail?
See, originally there was just Gmail. Its interface was kind of dated though, so a dude at Google on one of those Friday coding sabbaticals they are famous for created something new and fresh; Inbox.
The problem is now that means my Android devices all have two email apps installed on them. Since I have two Android devices I carry with me, that means each email I receive now gives me four notifications. The vast majority of that email is spam of course. The two email tools are good at different things, so even if I could delete the older gmail (I can't), I probably wouldn't want to.
Google has analyzed this situation and come up with the perfect solution: A third email app for my Android devices.
GMail is a system app on a lot (if not all?) of phones, it can't be removed. At best it can have its updates removed and be disabled.
Installing Gmail Go will only end up using even more storage space.
Yea, they could use the version from 2008 .. and while we're at it, lets' go back to the gmail web app from 2005! The one that wasn't garbage.
I would be excited but my phone has a ton of apps pre-installed that can't be uninstalled. If I could uninstall GMAIL I would switch to this in a heart beat or just use the web interface.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Why would I install a second Gmail app when I can't even uninstall the first one? This would take up even more storage space. Do these idiots at Google not even realise that even if you disable the Gmail app it still takes up storage space?
If you're on Android & care about email I strongly recommend K-9 Mail.
It is an open source mail client which is more like Thunderbird (i.e., it downloads messages locally) than the Gmail app. So you can open it even when you have no Internet and know that the email it downloaded will actually be available.
I travel quite a bit and found this ability utterly indispensable after a few times where I had things like boarding passes, hotel registrations, etc in my Gmail and wasn't able to easily load them in the Gmail mobile app. I now have a "Travel" folder in my Gmail which I've set to always download all the contents, so I know when I go to a new city it will have anything I need into it, accessible when I get there, with or without Internet access.
Maybe it has changed in the last few years but not having access to email that I had previously downloaded (i.e., "viewed on the cloud", which I suspect is what mostly happens with the Gmail app) was a total dealbreaker.
Supports multiple accounts, IMAP & POP3, even PGP if you care about that. The only thing that doesn't work great is search - it only will search your locally downloaded mail - and even then it seems to be a bit flaky. In these cases I use the Gmail mobile web interface to find things.
K-9 is a mail client on mobile that works much more like old school nerds would expect!