In the fall, Google included its priority inbox with Gmail for Android so that you could (in theory) get right to important e-mails without having to sort through everything else. Today Gmail on Android has tweaked priority inbox just a little bit, so that you have a dedicated view for only important items, the option to mark and unmark items as priority-worthy, and set special notifications for when priority messages hit your inbox. Aside from that, there are a few tweaks to e-mail composing, like switching between reply, reply all, and forward from a drop-down menu, send from any address you have configured to work with Gmail on the desktop, and reply to messages in-line for those times when there are specific sections you want to address.
Gmail has been subject to a couple of updates like this since being disassociated with the core OS and treated like an everyday Market app. It’s a great change Google made, and Android users are sure to be happy with the new features becoming available as a result. Personally, I’ve had a mixed experience with priority inbox on the desktop. I still don’t quite trust it enough to take over my default view, and as such don’t bother with marking or unmarking important items. For folks who deal with a large amount of volume, I could see this feature being a godsend.
The downside to the update Android app is that it’s only for 2.2 Froyo and up. There are still plenty of 2.1 users out there who for now will be left out in the cold. Those of you happily running Froyo can download the new Gmail from the Android Market.