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MobileMe #2 - Why I love Gmail and wouldn't change

Jan Zdarsa
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This part of the mini-series "Why did I close my MobileMe account?" will focus on the most important function of every Internet user, namely email. I will try to explain why I chose free email and Gmail in the following lines.

In the series "Why did I cancel my MobileMe account?".

If there's one thing Google does best, it's web applications. I created a Gmail account back in the days when invitations were necessary, otherwise you couldn't register (in short, the same way it is currently with Google Wave). In the first few months, what I loved most about Gmail was the size of the space and the style merging emails into conversations, but Gmail didn't rest on its laurels and kept improving.

Currently, I don't miss anything at all in Gmail on the web, and sometimes I prefer it to the desktop client. Above all, you will find a lot in the so-called Google Labs experimental functions, which can certainly please some of you and which you will not find in the competition. Some of you will also appreciate the offline access to this web application via Google Gears, but currently, for example, support for the new Safari is missing (for a long time).

I'd like to compare Gmail vs MobileMe web, but I can't sing the praises of Gmail and I don't want to bash the Me.com account too much. MobileMe offers an environment with very limited functions, very cumbersome, and I would definitely not recommend MobileMe to anyone if they want to use e-mail a lot and access it via the web. No way, the MobileMe email environment is very bad for users, maybe it's just nicer to the eye.

But MobileMe users often use iPhones, and many of them bought a MobileMe account primarily for email push notifications. This means that if you received an email, the iPhone immediately notified you with the sound of the email arrival and the number of new messages appeared on the email client icon. But it's already some Friday, when Gmail started using Active Sync, which actually works exactly the same. The biggest advantage thus falls, it is equalized here. Perhaps with the only difference that you can only have one Exchange account on an iPhone, while you can probably have as many MobileMe accounts here as you want. Even so, you can use your Gmail account via IMAP and leave notifications of new emails to 3rd party applications.

But there is a huge disadvantage of a MobileMe email account if you are not comfortable with the official iPhone email client. If you want to access email from Safari, then you are uploaded. The Me.com address will inform you that you have to configure an email client and no mobile web experience is not found here! Once again, just confirmation that Apple simply can't do web applications.

In contrast, a mobile web application Gmail.com is perhaps the best mobile web application, which I know. I wrote 5 reasons why I like her so much, but I think I could easily go on..

1) It looks great
2) It is great to work with - great emphasis on usability
3) Works even offline
4) Speed ​​speed speed – the application does not load completely after starting, but only downloads new emails
5) Email conversations merge

In addition, Gmail supports the IMAP protocol, thanks to which you have the same content on the web and on all devices, and already read emails are marked as read everywhere. And on the iPhone, you can use ActiveSync, which immediately notifies you of incoming mail. Another advantage can be that thanks to 3rd party applications they can walk you push notifications also in text form, which probably doesn't even work on a MobileMe account. Not everyone needs it, but it can come in handy.

There's a lot more to Gmail than that. For example, you can directly from desktop Gmail chat with other people via Gmail chat, or even start a video call. You can also view upcoming calendar events, use a simple Google task list, and much more thanks to Google Labs. Personally, I also use labels a lot, which you can apply to e-mails, for example, using the drag&drop principle. If you dive deeper into Gmail, you'll discover a lot of small but very useful features!

For example, it's not worth even talking about popular Czech freemails (yes, I really don't understand how Seznam mail Křištálové Lupu could get this year), because they still just copy Gmail, but first of all, not very well and also slowly. They will always be a few steps behind and the result is disturbing. For example, Seznam.cz is only now slowly introducing the IMAP protocol. Abroad, freemails are a bit better, but it is the Gmail mobile web application and Exchange support that make it the clear king among emails.

ps If anyone is interested, I still have 10 invitations to Google Wave. I will send the invitation to those who request them first. Invitations are already sold out :)

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