New Gmail for the iPhone
We've just released a new look and feel for the mobile version of Gmail on your iPhone. Our goal: make Gmail fit nicely as part of the latest Google on your iPhone experience. This means that we had to make Gmail faster and more fluid.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is Google's second pass at Gmail on Apple's handset within four months: back in September 2007 the team shipped an overhaul of Gmail Mobile's interface, and today's update extends that work specifically to the iPhone, folding mail into what Google calls its 'latest Google on your iPhone' experience.
The timing matters because web-based email has been widely criticized as stagnant — observers noted in late 2007 that webmail had seen only token improvements over a decade while instant messaging and social networks iterated rapidly. A visibly faster, more fluid Gmail on the most talked-about new device is Google answering that critique where attention is concentrated.
First-order effects
- iPhone owners browsing to Gmail get a faster and more fluid web client immediately — no download required — as part of Google's coordinated Google-on-iPhone push.
Second-order effects
- Gmail's polish on a coveted device reinforces its role as the hook for Google Apps Education Edition, where student enthusiasm for Gmail was already credited with driving college adoption.
- Heavy iPhone usage is not friction-free: Duke University's network administrators spent mid-2007 dealing with iPhone traffic knocking out dozens of campus Wi-Fi access points, a reminder that demand for these services arrives faster than infrastructure adapts.
Third-order effects
- If Google keeps iterating Gmail as a browser-delivered product on a device with no installed third-party software channel, the web app itself becomes the distribution strategy — a bet that browser-based clients can match the pace of instant messaging and social networks rather than trailing them by years.
The trend: Webmail is being dragged out of its decade-long stasis by device-specific web clients like Gmail's, as Google treats the browser — not native installs — as its delivery mechanism on the iPhone.