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Comment by kuhnster | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone considered if the iPhone is a good choice of you are a Gmail user?

I have noticed that the Gmail app load time, on the iPhone, is unusably slow but it is one of the apps I need to use daily.

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Is there a specific reason you are using the Gmail app instead of the OS provided mail app?

Not the OP, but I noticed the same and in my case the reason it's simple: I have all my email/attachments since 2004/2005 in gmail. I use full archive search way more often than I care to admit.

I love how gmail works/syncs across all platforms (my iPad on iOS, two Android devices, PC laptop and Mac desktop) and doesn't limit me to the Mac/iOS platform.

Shouldn't it work the same way if you are just using IMAP? I never used the gmail app that's why I'm not familiar with it's inner workings.

For me it's because I've come to rely on the Gmail tabs (primary/social/promotions/updates), which the built-in Mail app just ignored. I could probably duplicate the effort with folders (though I use those also, in parallel to the tabs), but I just started using the Gmail app instead which handled it all fine.

There's that - and the fact that Gmail app can prevent the non-Primary tabs from sending notifications.

Also there's search... Mail.app does not handle search well for Gmail.

Unfortunately search barely works for me on Mail. That is a big one. Also, in the mornings before work I like clean out my mail but I don't have access to my Gmail primary tab so I tend to tons of unnecessary email. Labeling also doesn't work.

A year or so ago Google removed the Exchange support necessary to do push via Apple's mail app (well, it's complicated: if you set up GMail via Exchange on the mail app prior to that point in time your device is grandfathered. Otherwise you've got to use the GMail app).

I would also recommend Mailbox for managing Gmail. It is one of my favorite apps I have ever used.

I cant seem to get push notifications to work with the OS app, is there a way around this?

Push notifications, I believe, don't happen in Mail.app?

I use the Gmail app on my iOS device daily, it works great.

Consider using Mailbox, an app by Dropbox. It is quite fast and has all the features I need for GMail. It makes checking email a joy.

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