I actually think the iPad’s native Mail application will be pretty satisfying but we all know Google makes the best Gmail clients, so it’s a good thing the search giant has introduced a web app specifically for Apple’s tablet.
While you’ll be able to get Gmail through the Mail’s IMAP protocol, Big G is making its own touch-tastic version that you can use just by visiting Gmail.com in the iPad’s browser. Utilizing HTML5, the web app takes advantage of the tablet’s bigger screen to provide a two-pane view for reading, sending and receiving e-mails. This view actually looks pretty bad ass and I wouldn’t mind my normal, non-touch interface looking like this. You’ll have all the regular functionality you expect, including labels, stars, and the whole shebang. You can also make this a home screen link, so it will look like any other app.
This is iPad-focused for the moment but you can bet your behind that it will be available for the slew of other tablets that will hit the streets soon, including the Chrome OS ones that should be in stores by the end of the year. Google sees a lot of promise in the tablet space and you can be sure we’ll see a lot more cross-platform web apps from the search giant.
“We’re particularly excited by how tablet computers create the opportunity for new kinds of user interaction,” Google wrote on its mobile blog. “Here on the mobile team, we often talk about how mobile devices are sensor-rich: they can sense touch through screens, see with a camera, hear through a microphone, and they know where they are with GPS. The same holds true for tablet computers, and we’re just starting to work through how our products can become even better on devices like the iPad.”
[Via Google Mobile blog]