Gmail on mobile has just improved and this update would make many mobile users of Gmail really happy. The update includes ‘pull down to refresh’ option, higher resolution icons and many animated transitions. This makeover of the mobile version might be a small one but significantly would ease the ‘on-the-go’ Gmail users with a better experience on their small screens.
Gmail has smartly made this update wherein they have not added any new feature as such to help the mobile users, but it has looked after to the user’s convenience. This maybe even in response to quite a few users frustration which was boiling because of the rigid ‘refreshing’ option they had. What ever may be the case, mobile Gmail users will now save time while checking their mails.
According to the entry made on the Google blog, the changes were detailed. For ‘Pull down to refresh’ option it said that the option was added which is quite similar to any social networking app of iOS. One can just use their fingers to drag down their screens and when its released, Gmail would start refreshing. Apparently, the update has been tested on BlackBerry PlayBook, iPad and iPhone devices. In the popular list on mobile, Twitter is quite popular for its ‘Pull down to refresh’ option which has been highly appreciated by mobile Twitter users.
The other interesting option was high resolution icons. This is an option which will not be highly effective for everyone using Gmail on their mobile. Apple iPhone users will be able to get the best view of this update. The reason being that Retina display is a requirement if one wants to get the best out of this update.
The last but not the least of the updates were Transitions. Gmail mobile has a new ‘slide’ effect which is animated when a user switches over from inbox conversations to the main menu or vice-versa. This update would smoothen viewing the mails and switching even.
Daniel Brotherston, Software Engineer for Google Mobile wrote in the blog post that the mobile team is working hard to come up with web apps which not just look like apps which are installed but even feel like they are using installed apps.
The update has been rolled out by Google without any major announcement, because of which many might have not noticed that this update was out a few weeks back but its in news only of late. Another point of the quiet update was because Google has even been working to unify Google Apps which is based on one’s desktop browser.
Gmail is improving its mobile services but at the same time many others are even improving their services for the convenience of the users. Twitter however with its HTML5 web-based app has been quite inspiring for Yahoo! and Gmail.
Google has many updates which have rolled out in the past few weeks and this update is again unique and shows that Google is trying to cover each and every aspect to make its position just a bit better than what it is on now. There might be many more updates soon, but the quality has a higher weight-age as compared to the quantity. Surprisingly, Google has integrated the quality and quantity while coming up with their updates in a fine manner, which has pleased its users.