So, yeah. For the longest time Gmail, the staple of most of our Google experience, had gone un-updated. Around Honeycomb, it added in the … waht’s the term they had for those ‘slide out panels’. And it got some UI revamp… but on the whole, it was still the same experience. No mark up… no pinch to zoom. While tons of other email apps grew and matured, the Gmail didn’t (well at least the Hotmail app is worse).
(and why is it Gmail, and not GMail? the icon has a capitalized M)
Then we saw it… in the release for 4.2 there was the leaked builds of the Gmail app – it would have pinch to zoom. Still… no rich text formatting, but we have zoom.
Jus tdon’t pull a “me” and immediately trying to pinch/zoom emails immediately. Remember, you’ve got to turn it on in a setting.
We also have some swiping of messages in the list to delete, neat, and adds to the whole “ICS swiping left/right” notion, but it’s more novel than functional features.
What I’m really thank ful for is the opportunity that is now afforded to us that these ‘system Google apps’ are now separate from the ‘system apps’. I.e. they don’t have to be updated via firmware update. Just update them via the Play Store. If it weren’t for that, folks on 4.0.x would have to wait god knows how long for an update to the newer features. Now if only the stock camera app could be the same… I’d be happy.
Go ahead and update now!
Now, if they could only go about to updating that horribly outdated “Reader” app.
