14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Outlook is currently one of the most popular email apps on iOS, but Google is working on making its own Gmail app a more powerful alternative by adding support for third-party accounts.
At this point, Gmail on IOS only supports Google accounts, but it looks like the search giant is working on adding functionality that’s exclusively available on Android at the moment, namely third-party account support.
This would basically turn Gmail into a fully-featured email client like Microsoft Outlook, Spark, Airmail, and others, though for the time being it’s not yet clear when the new option would be rolled out to users.
What Google does right now is invite iPhone users to register for a beta program that would have them try out this feature before everyone else. The beta registration page is available here and it requires some basic information like name, Gmail address, the iOS device, and the non-Google email account that should work with the app.
Custom domains to also be supported
Google is currently testing the service with Outlook, Yahoo, Yandex, and Mail.ru, as well as with “other” services, which basically means that the Gmail app would allow users to configure their own business accounts with custom IMAP or POP3 settings.
Third-party email account support is already available in the Android version of Gmail and this is one of the reasons Android phone makers offering the stock version of the operating system rely on this app as the default email client. On iOS, however, Gmail will have to compete against a growing group of apps, some of which have already recorded millions of downloads, such as Microsoft’s own Outlook.
Google hasn’t said anything about when this feature could go live, but for the time being it’s still beta-testing it and more information should be provided at a later time. Gmail on iOS is currently at version 5.0.170910, with the last update rolled out on September 25.