Are you a Gmail user? Got an iPhone? Do you want every single email you receive to pop up in your lock screen? Then the latest update to the Gmail for iOS app is for you!
The Gmail iPhone app hasn’t had the best reception in its short life. Released on the morning of November 2, it was pulled from the app store several hours later after a bug was discovered relating to the app’s push notifications — that is, the app’s ability to tell you when new email comes in.
The app soon relaunched, without push notifications. As of Monday’s update [iTunes link], however, the push notifications are back — but there’s no way to customize them.
The only option, it seems, is to have every email appear as it comes in, in your lock screen.
What we’d love to see: the ability to customize push notifications so that only email that Gmail considers “important” — something the service’s algorithms are pretty good at figuring out, once you train them — pop up on your phone. (Does anyone really want to see every unimportant message they’re CCed on, every Facebook group email or Twitter notification?)
The update does add the ability to send from a different email address, much as regular Gmail does. There is not, however, support for multiple accounts yet. (On Android, of course, where Gmail is baked right into the OS, it’s a different story.)
Apple has announced its Mail app will get a push notification update in iOS6 — where new email from just your designated VIPs will appear in the lock screen.
Can the Gmail app compete? Do you use it? Let us know in the comments.
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