Macadamian Blog

A mobile web app that feels like a native app

Today Google announced an update of the mobile Gmail for Safari. There are a number of useful improvements, but for me, what's significant about the update is that for the first time, I prefer a web app over a native app.  

We use Gmail as our corporate mail and calendaring system at Macadamian, which I access through my iPhone's native mail and calendar (you can connect to Gmail as though it was an MS Exchange server). Today I tried the new web versions of Gmail and Google Calendar, which you can access on your iPhone by going to gmail.com in Safari. Not only are they are as easy to use as the native iPhone apps, they're faster. Retrieving the latest calendar data from the server in the iPhone native app often takes 30 or more seconds. In the mobile web app you're only a few seconds away from your agenda. They've also done a great job of designing a mobile web app that works well in the mobile context - everything I would want to do in Gmail from a mobile device is there. And, there are a few gems that really won me over, like a "Map" link next to the address in a Calendar item, and the ease at which you can respond to a calendar invite - both things that are lacking, or difficult, in the iPhone native apps. 

Hats off to the Gmail team for creating a very compelling mobile Web app that is in many respects superior to it's native alternative. For mobile designers and developers, the decision to develop a web app or native app is getting blurrier by the day.