14 DAY TRIAL // The heavily anticipated Apple iPad was launched over the weekend and the public response, as expected, has been huge, with the device selling in the hundreds of thousands. It's understandable, then, why everybody is interested in catering for the new, must-have device, Google included. Despite not being in the best of terms with Apple, the two giants know they need each other. Google is releasing a slew of apps and services customized for the iPad and Gmail, arguably one of its biggest products, is no different.
With the iPad, Google decided to come up with a brand-new interface, based on the Gmail for mobile app built with HTML5. In a sense, it's an extension of the existing mobile app that makes use of the larger screen provided by the iPad.
"With today's [04.03] release of the iPad, we're launching an experimental two-pane user interface to take advantage of its large touchscreen and tablet form factor. Building upon the Gmail for mobile web app, this new interface displays your conversations on the left and your messages on the right hand side," Alex Nicolaou, engineering manager at Google, announced.
"All the features of the Gmail web app that you're used to, such as offline access and aggressive caching to reduce latency, are present in the iPad version. Tablet devices are still very new, so expect changes as we continue to optimize for this new format," he explained.
If you're a lucky owner of a brand-new Apple iPad, then all you need to do is head over to gmail.com in Safari to get access to the new interface. It's by no means final, Google is waiting for feedback from users, but the overall design should be pretty much close to the finished product. Using Gmail for mobile as a base for the iPad version makes sense, as it is already designed and optimized for touch input.
The larger screen of the tablet makes for a much better experience than the cramped ones you get on smartphones, but, without a mouse, using the default Gmail web interface would have been a very bad choice. The two-pane interface makes it easy to get through a list of messages from different people and, besides, the extra space had to be utilized somehow. It may not be perfect for heavy email users, but the iPad wasn't designed as a work tool. The two-pane design is also expected to be available to other, if not all, tablet devices in the future.