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Google Businesses The Internet Communications

Google Launches Mobile Mail 134

lazy_hp writes "Google has launched mobile phone version of Gmail. The service automatically optimizes the interface for the phone you're using and also 'Lets you reply by call to people whose phone numbers are in your Gmail Contacts list'. Technewsworld has a story on this. From the article: 'Gmail is now a kind of hub for Google ... GoogleTalk and a range of personalized services are all tied in together through Gmail registration. The more registration data collected by Google, the more relevant search results and ads can potentially be.'"
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Google Launches Mobile Mail

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  • "From the article: 'Gmail is now a kind of hub for Google ... GoogleTalk and a range of personalized services are all tied in together through Gmail registration. The more registration data collected by Google, the more relevant search results and ads can potentially be.'" Integration makes it a better experience for us end users also. I'm just waiting for more features from Gtalk.
    • by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:07AM (#14290061) Homepage Journal
      GTalk needs some serious attention if they want it to be accepted by the public. But that makes me wonder... do they really want it to be accepted by the public? The voice chat feature is the best part of it for me; the quality is superb compared to other clients I've tried. Still, limiting it to Gmail users means that most people I know aren't eligible. And not having rich text, file transfers, and options for conversation logging are a good reason to find another client.
      • by diersing ( 679767 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:21AM (#14290096)
        Maybe Google's recent buy-in of AOL will facilitate some GTalk-AIM integration to consolidate chat services to better combat Yahoo and MSN. Course, I'd rather Google stay out of those wars and make a client that could communicate with all 3 natively, but that's me.
      • by wootest ( 694923 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:52AM (#14290163)
        Google just released the specifications to their audio extensions ("Jingle"), and GAIM is working on integrating it, which means that it's not impossible that it'll find its way into the "plain Jabber" features, at which point no doubt other Jabber clients will start to implement it as well. That sounds likely, at least, and it'll mean you won't have to use Google Talk unless you want to.

        There's no doubt in my mind that Google Talk is to get dramatically more open and more features. I think what they've done so far is dip their toes in the water, and with the release of the Jingle specs and source code (where copyright goes back to 2004 - I don't think they're likely to drop this) they're really saying "OK, let's do this" and getting some very nice leverage from the community in the process.
      • But that makes me wonder... do they really want it to be accepted by the public?

        It's an interesting thought - what if GTalk was simply a beta version - a test platform if you will - for a much larger VOIP rollout later on? Get folks to start chatting VOIP style, see how reliable it is, then incorporate that into all those fun trailor-sized boxes Google will start distributing... Instant phone network for Google.

      • Everyone can get a gmail account now. The have your friends recommend you bit ended months ago.
        • I've had no shortage of Gmail invites for even longer, but that hasn't encouraged my friends to sign up. They just don't want the account. Most have Yahoo! or AIM; while I consider the GoogleTalk a faster and cleaner option, I've had little success convincing people they need to adopt yet another messaging client.
    • "GoogleTalk and a range of personalized services are all tied in together through Gmail registration" Is this really anything new? I've always used Googles services in conjunction with each other. To check my mail I use Google talk which is docked onto Google desktop.
    • Yeah, and I'm just waiting for NTP or Visto to sue google. NTP must be salivating everytime they hear a large company say mobile mail.
    • If they start collecting credit card information, it will be just like Passport.
  • Loved Ones (Score:2, Funny)

    by JonathanR ( 852748 )
    So you can then phone home to let your loved ones know what your coordinates really are, +/-10 metres.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Hmm... Probably not good to break up via cell phone with a woman in the Army who has access to satellite guided bombs.
  • Ummmm... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vivek Jishtu ( 905067 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:03AM (#14290051) Homepage Journal
    I tried it on my mobile but it is unable to open it. Try opening http://m.gmail.com/ [gmail.com] in opera.
    XML parsing failed: mismatched tag (Line: 27, Character: 439)
    • Re:Ummmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by moonbender ( 547943 )
      Hah. That's what they get for serving XHTML+XML instead of just plain old HTML 4.01.
      • by Nurgled ( 63197 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:32AM (#14290118)

        In this case it was probably a sensible choice. There are phones out there that only support the XHTML mobile profile [w3.org] or XHTML basic [w3.org], and while they'll attempt to render normal XHTML documents they don't have a "tag-soup" parser available to try to render normal HTML. All of the latest phones have browsers capable of rendering normal pages (Opera with its small screen rendering, for example) but I think Google is also catering to the previous generation where XHTML support was just hacked on top of the WML (WAP markup) support using the existing XML parser.

    • Re:Ummmm... (Score:2, Informative)

      I said Opera 'cause I thought they were using WML but I guess they are using XHTML. Even if you try it out in firefox you should get the same error :) Someone forgot to add a / in br.
    • I had the same problem with Opera on my mobile phone. So I tried the built-in browser on my SprintPCS Samsung phone and the page still wouldn't load. Yet the non-mobile gmail loads fine.
    • Try logging on to real gmail first. Same for Firefox users. IE users are screwed.
    • ... Once I authenticate ( Mozilla Browser ) on the regular site, I can then access the m.gmail.com without authenticating again.
    • I'm using a Nokia 6600 with the Opera web browser.

      I had the same exact problem as you.

      The workaround is to go to the regular gmail login page, log in to give your browser a cookie (check off "remember me"), then try again.

      I assume they will fix that soon, but I now have it workin great!

      Alas, I could not connect using the HTTPS protocol to keep all comm secure. Odd because I got a certificate acceptance message and THEN it failed.
    • My Blackberry loaded GMail just fine at HTML for the entire past year. Now they changed the interface, and it is much worse than before. The design is counter-intuitive. Also, they make you click a whole bunch of extra times.

      No fun.
    • Got that error too in Opera Mini on mobile phone :( But if you open gmail.com, log in, and then go to m.gmail.com, it works perfectly. Much faster and easier to use now, when you don't have to scroll some three pages down the folders and labels to read a message.
  • Bah, no WAP (Score:3, Funny)

    by Urkki ( 668283 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:15AM (#14290085)
    If they had WAP support, then I'd be immediately interested... Oh well, maybe soon they'll be selling HTML-capable phones that are small enough for my pocket and I'll upgrade...
    • Oh well, maybe soon they'll be selling HTML-capable phones that are small enough for my pocket and I'll upgrade...

      Not [nokia.com] small [nokia.com] enough [nokia.com]? Some earlier models have been around for years.

      (Sorry for being a Nokia fanboy. I'm sure other phone manufacturers have small models with XHTML browsers as well.)

      • Nah, too small display. A bit wider screen (just 5mm would make the difference), a bit less thick, a bit shorter, about that weight, with good and fast UI. Probably would have to be a clam shell model to be able to fit both decent keyboard and decent display, but then those are still too thick for my taste at the moment.

        No, the technology isn't quite there yet. Maybe in a year or so...
        • If you think a 128x128 screen is small, they've also had XHTML capability in phones with a 96x65 screen, such as the 3595 [nokiausa.com] for about the past 2 1/2 years now.

          I happen to have one, and the mobile Gmail interface works tolerably well on it.

    • Re:Bah, no WAP (Score:2, Informative)

      by dapendragon ( 832274 )
      Incorrect. Works with WAP on my Siemens SL55.
    • Re:Bah, no WAP (Score:2, Interesting)

      by wedding ( 618458 )
      I carry the Audiovox Windows Mobile phone, and have for over a year. If you can't fit this phone in your pocket, you need to buy clothes in the adults section perhaps. Just tested the m.gmail this morning, and it works like a champ.
    • This *is* WAP. XHTML is WAP 2.0.
  • Neat Article Info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:20AM (#14290093) Homepage Journal
    "Analysts noted that like all Web-based services, Gmail has technically always been accessible from Web-ready mobile phones. But the Web version was often difficult to read on all but high-end mobile devices, with the browser window on smaller handhelds only displaying a part of the actual Web page."

    "'This is mobile e-mail for the rest of us, who have normal or tiny screens,' said Kelsey Group managing editor Greg Sterling."


    That's sounds really great for users -- that could be a truly decisive feature, for those who need email access on the road, but for some reason don't already own a blackberry.

    Also, is there anyway that MicroSoft can beat back the Google threat on the mobile front, based on the fact that they make the OS that many of these phones use?

    It seems that if there is a browser, Google can somehow deliver services to it. So the fact that Windows is on many of these phones won't mean much. I wouldn't put it past Gates or Ballmer to crippled the browser if they thought it would help though -- but that would really be cutting off their testicles to spite their penis. Or however that saying goes.
    • by JanneM ( 7445 )
      That's sounds really great for users -- that could be a truly decisive feature, for those who need email access on the road, but for some reason don't already own a blackberry.

      Or do not already have a real email account and client on their phone. I think you can't get a phone without it here anymore.

    • Also, is there anyway that MicroSoft can beat back the Google threat on the mobile front, based on the fact that they make the OS that many of these phones use?
      Microsoft is already way ahead of google on this front. OMA [microsoft.com] has been available for exchange for as long as I've been using it.
    • It has everything goodlge offers and more..... and has been for much longer tooo. Oddly they released a beta on the same day as google for mobile email (their 2nd one). and yes it works on my blackberry
  • They'd lock me out (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sime208 ( 709155 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:21AM (#14290097)
    I have (or had?) a Google Mail and Orkut account, which four days ago they closed down. God knows why, I've had the email account around a year, and the Orkut account around 3 months, but I've rarely used them. I've maybe sent 5 email from Gmail, and used Orkut for around 30 minutes more for curiosity than anything else.

    Anyway, tried to get logged in to Google and couldn't. I've absolutely no idea why they'd decide to bar my account. Emailed the address they gave, had an auto-response back and instructions to reply if that didn't help. Replied I did, and I'm still waiting.

    If this had been my primary mail account, I'd have been *pissed*.

    For all these services sound the business, I'm reminded now why I run my own IMAP server. Functionality may be basic, but I 'own' my emails and run SquirrelMail so I can get at them via the web if needs be... Ad-free.

    If the choice is between fewer features, but knowing my email is mine, I'll go with the first option any day.

    Just wonder *when* Google will get back to me...
    • by Rxke ( 644923 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @08:45AM (#14290344) Homepage
      Isn't it just because you didn't actually use those accounts for a long time, you got kicked off? IIRC Google 'recycles' dormant accounts... A lot of other free webmail providers do, so...
      • I'd definitely looked at my Gmail account the month previous, although I don't use it for mail, I still log in now and again to see what updates and improvements they're making.
      • by Sime208 ( 709155 )
        Sorry, to clarify, I shouldn't have said 'closed down' in my original post. They'd disabled my account. The message I get when I try to sign in is "Sorry, your account has been disabled. If this should not have happened, please contact our user support team at accounts-support@google.com."
    • I want to know why people assume that ads are "bad." An ad that is relative to what I am searching, or what I am interested in makes it easy for me to keep up on things that "might" interest me. It's a way for those interesting things to find me, instead of vise versa. It's the crappy "win-this" flash ads that are the true scourage of the Internet.
      • by Sime208 ( 709155 )
        Sure, Google's ads are tidier than anyone elses, and they're neatly presented. It's not so much the ads I mind as the decrease in screen space. I use many PC's that are fixed to 800x600 and I like all the room I can to read mails and navigate folders. Ad's just get in the way of that.
    • Speaking of running your own IMAP server with SquirrelMail, have you come up with any WAP type access? I started it writing a plugin once, but only got as far as making the login.php script redirect to the WAP plugin's login page. I think I may have gotten a user name and password box, but I never did get to the point of making the login page.... ummm, log in.
      • have you come up with any WAP type access?
        Sorry, luckily (or unluckily?) I'm always in the presence of a computer so it's not something I've ever looked into. My Nokia 6310 (which I refuse to upgrade from) wouldn't be much fun to read and type emails on anyway :)
        but I never did get to the point of making the login page.... ummm, log in.
        :-D Sounds like my Gmail account..
      • Why, oh, why would anybody waste a mod point on marking the parent post offtopic? Is it directly related to Google Launching a Mobile Mail client? No. It is, however, still about Mobile email.... so that means of the 4 words in the title my post actually was on topic to 2 of them... that's half of the title!

        It's not like I posted about how much Microsoft sucks or something... oh, wait, that probably would have been modded up! Sometimes I forget that this is the new slashdot where any old idiot (to include m
    • I googled for "Sorry, your account has been disabled" and there are other people in your situation. Over a year ago it happened to people selling accounts but lately it has happened some others. If you some of the software that uses your gmail account as a network drive your account might get disabled. Also some people claim it happened after sending or receiving a large number of photos. Hopeully it was just an overly sensitive automated trip and will be fixed for those affected.
  • Old news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rbb ( 18825 ) <remco@@@rc6...org> on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:21AM (#14290098) Homepage
    Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Happened About 4 Days Ago [betanews.com]?

    On a sidenote: instead of the folks at Google adding new functionality of doubtful usefulness (autoresponders are the root of all evil in the corporate environment, right up there with running MS Exchange servers), can't they please finally let me delete or archive more than 100 messages at a time?
    • Re:Old news... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      Actually, because of how I use GMail, I'd prefer that they add an option to "Mark Messages as Read" before I label/Archive them. That way I don't have to visit GMail daily in order to make sure I don't have to thumb through multiple "All Mail" to manually mark them as read.

      On a side note, I'm thrilled with the HTML version as it works *VERY WELL* on my mobile device and it's quite fast! I take back what I said last week about Google coming out w/lame stuff like Web Clips and GMusic ;)
    • 100 messages? Whenever I do a search, it shows me only 20...
      • Under settings there is an option to change this:

        Maximum page size: show 25/50/100 conversations per page.
        • Re:Old news... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by mikeage ( 119105 )
          Set to 100.

          If I click on a label, I get 100 messages. If I type label: into the search box, I get 20 (and can't seem to change that)
    • It's even older news with no point for Yahoo mail users having this feature for 5 years or so.

      http://wap.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]
  • For non-US resident (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alarash ( 746254 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:25AM (#14290106)
    Hi,

    I just tried this from France (wireless provider: Orange). My phone is listed as working but my wireless provider is not listed, obviously, since it's supposed to work only in the US. I wonder why it would work only in the US and not in the rest of the world. Any idea?

  • by Vivek Jishtu ( 905067 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:33AM (#14290122) Homepage Journal
    If you are somehow able to log in, you will see that there is no beta tag anywhere. One of the first products from google that is not a beta or they forgot to add the tagline.
  • by bmsleight ( 710084 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:38AM (#14290137) Homepage
    I been using my gmail account from my phone for a while. Its the normal gmail.com [gmail.com] not the m.gmail.com [gmail.com] version. It is just like using a non-java browser works very well and uses very little data ~1M per month.
  • by davemabe ( 105354 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @07:39AM (#14290138) Homepage
    Here's a review with screenshots [oreillynet.com] as seen on a BlackBerry 7100g.
  • by csshyamsundar ( 895231 ) <csshyamsundar@gm ... com minus author> on Monday December 19, 2005 @08:22AM (#14290247)
    Actually long before the launch of Gmail mobile., there is a service called Gmail Wireless [gmailwireless.com]

    They have a lite version [gmailwireless.com] where you can access Gmail without ads.

    The wap version [gmailwireless.com] where you can access Gmail via any WAP enabled device.

    Im comfortable with these services., as a matter of fact Gmail lite from gmailwireless.com loads 100% faster than original GMail.com., Best of all you dont have any Crazy Ajax stuff that sucks my FireFox's Memory.

    -CS Shyam Sundar

    --
    It is my job to corrupt young people with the contageous, infectious idea of individual freedom.

    • ...and to get Gmail Wireless, all you have to do is provide your Gmail username and password to a service that is "not affiliated with or endorsed by google." Considering how many services are/will be tied into your Google Account, I'd consider that a pretty big leap of faith.
      • Yes, that was something I considered... but I haven't seen any bad come of it so far :)
      • generic-man wrote: "all you have to do is provide your Gmail username and password to a service that is not affiliated with or endorsed by google."

        Well., even though they ask so., you can directly logon using that service., even me., i did not provide my username and passwd.

        Considering how many services are/will be tied into your Google Account, I'd consider that a pretty big leap of faith.

        You might argue., like those ppl. may even try saving my password as all the logon info goes via. their server.,

  • by scrm ( 185355 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @08:39AM (#14290315) Homepage
    I've been using GMail mobile (in the UK) since it was announced Friday. It works very well indeed, and the interface is probably the best I've seen - much simpler than many mobile Java email clients.


    One gripe on my Nokia 6230 is that I need to enter my login details at each step - to access the inbox, then to reply, etc. This doesn't happen with my friend that uses O2 (I'm on Vodafone), and I've checked all the cookie and security settings on my phone. I raised this issue with Google and got an immediate response - the phone and network are currently unsupported by Gmail mobile. Does anyone have any similar experiences and suggested workarounds?

  • Long passphrase! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Inda ( 580031 )
    It's times like this I wish I'd chosen a shorter passphrase with less symbols. I truly hope m.gmail.com 'remembers me'. :)

    Very old, very cheap, Siemens MC60 on the Tescos O2 pay-as-you-blow network (UK) works perfectly. This is free for me by the way; does anyone else pay for GPRS on Tescos O2?

    Normally when I try and surf the web on my phone it looks a mess, important bits are missing or the phone runs out of memory because the page is too large. Gmail did not suffer from any of these problems.

    1. The interf
  • by xoip ( 920266 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @09:32AM (#14290603) Homepage
    Has Google just made themselves a target for Patent litigation from NTP?
    • Standard IANAL and to be honest I haven't been following this case closely, but isn't it all about pushing email to a mobile device? If so, then as long as Google doesn't offer a "give us your mobile number and we'll SMS you when you get a new message" feature they should be OK.
    • NTP?? Network Time Protocol via e-mail?!? Hey, combine this with IP over carrier pigeon (RFC 1499: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt) and your cell phone's clock will be SUPER precise!! You'll also have the coolest network stack around!
  • Tried it on the new ROKR iTunes phone and it doesn't work.
    Gives the login window under a bunch of crap - but the login button doesn't work.

    Looks the same as going to the normal gmail url. The login button doesn't work there either.

    • The "crap" is CSS and JavaScript.

      And if you look at the list of supported phones, you'll see that the Rokr is not on there.

      http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=30596&topic=8303 [google.com]
      • Unless the ROKR isn't P2K based (and I see no reason to believe it isn't), it's going to be using pretty much the same internal software as the triplets series, which *are* compatible.

        I would have expected the ROKR to work, based on Google speccing the v300 and v600 as functional. Guess I should check with my RAZR later and see if it works.
        • That's what I was thinking... I had a v557 and the ROKR software looks and works absolutely identical in every way (just with the addition of an iTunes app). I could open gmail directly in the browser (also same) on the v557 - but I can open neither gmail directly nor the m.gmail front end with the ROKR. I suspect something display related - as the ROKR screen is noticably bigger than the v557's was - guessing whatever keeps the ROKR from working w/ m.gmail is related to its screen layout code. But I'm n
          • Just tested it on my RAZR, which uses the same software and screen as the ROKR AFAIK. Complained about cookies for me, which may or may not be a function of Tmobile. But in theory they should all work... they all use the same software codebase, and some of them are even firmware cross-compatible.

            (I'm not a mobile apps dev, I just work for a cellphone company. Not, for the record, for their cell division.)
          • Just confirming - tried it at work on another guys RAZR and it works fine. But not on my ROKR. And the screens and software are just about identical in everything else. I'm guessing more along the lines of memory now - the iTunes app is always running in the background so maybe that is reducing the available memory for other apps (like the browser in this case).

            Really enjoying the ROKR so far - 100 song limit and all. Even the slow file transfers aren't that bad. My only dislike on real iPods is the l
  • Not WAP? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by TheSync ( 5291 )
    I can't use m.gmail.com using my Blackberry WAP browser, while Yahoo! mail (from wap.yahoo.com) works great!

    How hard is it, in this day and age, to have a CSS that is WAP-friendly???? If Google would like to hire me, I can have it in a day or two, and you could have wap.gmail.com!
  • Blackberry for GMail (Score:2, Interesting)

    by debraj ( 853623 )
    http://www.shapeservices.com/eng/im/GMAIL/ [shapeservices.com] Someone's selling Blackberries dedicated to their use to check Gmail emails.
  • http://m.gmail.com/ [gmail.com] , not http://mobile.gmail.com/ [gmail.com] .

    Thanks, G.

  • by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Monday December 19, 2005 @11:12AM (#14291249) Homepage Journal
    My gmail on my mobile devices shows differently on every device. Pocket IE displays the basic gmail, Netfront shows a closer version to the AJAX desktop version. WAP doesn't work at all. Gmail probably has the best support short of hotmail (Microsoft loves to make sites compatible with Pocket IE) for mobiles, but all of them are far short of usable like the desktop.

    I'm really lost in finding a solution. No mobile web browser can compete with the desktop ones, based mostly on memory and processor limitations. Standards are becoming too hard to catch up with for the mobile end. I'm thinking the only solution is for these web designers to actually test a mobile version on various devices.

    Slashdot looks great on my PDA (I'm on it now). Gmail is getting closer. Even with these two looking decent, they aren't good enough. Why are companies spending money adding new features when the web sites still don't render perfectly? Get the code and interface stable across the mobile platforms and THEN add features.
  • Email-via-web-pages seems a terrible idea of cellphones. My Sony Ericsson T616 does email via IMAP. It works great, the phone has more knowledge about emails and how to display them, it integrates into the phone's contact list, the phone can poll every 5 minutes for mail, and it displays a little icon at the top of the screen showing how many emails you have waiting.

    This is surely The Right Way To Do It. And mobile gmail is an unpleasant compromise for less-able phones.
    • http://www.flurrymail.com/ [flurrymail.com] is another option if the client on your phone is too slow. It's fast and client based, with the option to send alerts to your phone when you have new mail. Works with other e-mail services too. I like that it uses compression to reduce bandwidth costs. It's surprising that better mobile e-mail solutions haven't come along sooner. Why all of a sudden are they popping up everywhere?
    • Yes, but you phone wont read gmail via IMAP because gmail doesnt support it and it wont read it by POP3 because your phone doesnt have SSL.

      The article is about gmail being accessable on mobile phones.
      • Sure, it's about gmail being accessible.

        But let's put it a second way. GMail is a second-rate mail service because it doesn't provide IMAP. This is an ugly hack to fix an ugly problem. It'd be better (ie. more elegant, more powerful, more user-friendly) to upgrade to a real email provider and a phone that does IMAP.
  • Now a days slashdot is posting the news very late. I tried to submit the same news 3 days back and they rejected. I dont know based onw hat critiria they reject the postings?
  • First, let me say that I had been using Gmail Lite (free service) for a few months now. It worked decently on my phone (Sharp 903SH), but I had to log in every time I wanted to use it. I started using http://m.gmail.com/ [gmail.com] and it works like a charm. Extremely fast (even on T-Mobile's $5.99/mo unlimited web plan!), and practical to use (maintains my login). I tend to like products with a small but well thought-out feature set (simplicity leads to fewer problems and inconveniences down the road), but I would li
  • It works great on my Palm T5. The same clean interface you expect from Google and it combines emails into easy to use conversations. I may never use Versamail again.

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