Gmail, Google Calendar tweaked for iPhone and Android

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 08 April 2009 07:13

Business IT - Technology

Changes to Gmail and Google Calendar are intended to make life easier for iPhone and Android users. Faster and easier access to information is the order of the day.

The mobile version of Google's popular Gmail service has been enhanced with a "Floaty Bar" that makes it easier to archive or delete one or more messages.

Other changes allow the web application to be opened even when offline, so users can compose new messages or re-open messages that have been recently read.

Google Calendar can now also be used offline.

Both Gmail and Calendar can be added to the device's home screen.

Although these changes only apply to the iPhone and Android versions, Google is keen to extend them to other devices with "high-end browsers".

"OEMs: you provide a world-class browser, we'll make sure Gmail and Calendar for mobile works on your platform," said Google Mobile product manager Shyam Sheth.

Both the iPhone's Safari browser and the Android browser are based on WebKit and thus support HTML5. Google has used HTML5's ability to start web applications offline and store data locally to replicate some of the functionality provided to desktop browsers by Gears.

"As an evolving standard, HTML5 has been fast-changing target and we've skinned our knees and bruised ourselves along the way," said Alex Nicolaou, engineering manager at Google Mobile.