The Apple App Store has been available for over three years now, and now there are rumors that Google may be about to launch a native iOS application for its Gmail service. AppleInsider are reporting that M.G. Siegler is claiming that multiple sources have told him the app is about to get launched.

He added that the he thinks the app had even been submitted for review to get release onto the App Store, and he also believes Apple will approve it. Sources are also claiming the app looks “pretty fantastic perhaps even surprisingly so”. One of the stand out features of the app is the addition of push notifications, and it could also include Priority Inbox and one click sorting of emails.

There are also claims that upcoming Gmail features such as contact icons, deep searching functionality, and even Google+ could eventually make their way onto the app. Before now Google has been using a web interface for Gmail on the platform. Apple’s native Mail application for iOS has always supported Gmail accounts for years now, but it does lack some features that Google offer via the web application.

Many have given reasons why there has been no Gmail app before now, with some saying Apple was stopping third-party mail apps to keep the focus on its own mail program. The obvious friction between the two companies has also been given as a reason for the delay.

Do you want to see a dedicated Gmail app for iOS?

Mike Luttrell over at TG Daily is reporting in an article, that before this latest change users were limited to just a few available themes. But now users can use any photo they want for the background of their inbox.

Google announced the news in a blog post and said that using themes in Gmail was great with many to choose from. It went on to say that they had “heard from many of you who thought it would be even better if you could give Gmail an even more personalized look and create themes completely on your own”.

You can use the new option now by using the option menu in Gmail. Under Mail Settings you will find the option of Create your own Theme. With this you can then upload your own photos and as many as you want.

Now every time you go to check your emails you can see your children or loved ones, and even your favorite pet if you desire. Users can even change Google’s home search page with a picture or background to create a personalized version of Google.com.

Have you used the new feature yet? What sort of background have you chosen?

Malcolm Moore from The Telegraph is reporting in an article that access to Gmail has been intermittent of late for users inside China. And now some foreign journalists are reporting that they have seen their accounts hacked into. The reports have coincided with authority’s stepping up their campaign to control the content on the internet.

This has come after there have been calls for a similar revolution in China on the web to what has been going on in the Middle East. Google has said that its engineers could find no technical difficulties with its website or its Gmail service.

In a statement Google said there was no “issue on our side”, and went on to say that a “government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail”. Just two weeks ago Google had mentioned they had noticed attacks against users in China.

Computer experts have said the Chinese government has started a new layer of censorship infrastructure to stop internet users in China by-passing the Great Firewall. Up until recently many internet users inside China have built private networks to swerve any censorship and keep information confidential. Now many companies who have these networks have reported them not working in the last week.

Do you think Google will eventually pull out of China altogether?

Zuckerberg took to the stage and announced the new messaging format that currently has no brand name as such, but instead of interpreting it as an email-like service, which he insisted is “too formal,” the CEO said that it would be a far more simpler system that can also handle SMS, IM and Facebook messages.

The idea is to consolidate all of your messaging history between contacts into a conversation-style format that become threads from the various services you use to communicate.

They will also be using something called a “social inbox,” which in part acts a lot like Gmail’s priority inbox. This will sort the most important messages (like say from family, close friends, and most chatted too) into one place, whereas everything else will go into a junk, or “other” folder until moved.

We also get confirmation of personalised e-mail address to each and every user that wants one. This means that if you do want one, your facebook e-mail address will be yourusername@facebook.com. Meanwhile, Facebook employees will use the @fb.com extension.

Unfortunately, there will be no IMAP support as of yet, and we have no word on how privacy settings are going to be acomplished at this point, but from what we have told you and what you already know, do you think that this will take off?

To see what others think, check out our poll about the Facebook E-mail (or modern messaging) service.

Let’s just hope they come up with a better name than “modern messaging system.”

Source: Engadget

If we analyse the current market, we see that the E-mail services currently out there are dominated by the big companies, namely Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and AOL.

Microsoft have recently updated their Hotmail service, and being one of the first to offer a free e-mail service, Microsoft were always the ‘go-to’ solution for your free e-mail address.

Since the revolution of e-mail, more and more companies hoped aboard, and with AOL also being there from day one, Google also tried it’s hand at offering free web-based e-mail, albeit invitation at first.

Gmail then went live in 2007, and was upgraded from beta in July of 2009 to which it has around 193.3 million monthly users, according to Wikipedia.

But if we were to contrast this with Facebook, who have over 500 million worldwide users, it makes sense for them to turn their current messaging service into a fully fledged web-based e-mail product that fan pages, companies, groups and individuals can use for their day to day communicating.

The new service, I am told is said to resemble that of the big three services already on offer, but the reason behind this may actually be down to Google themselves as they have recently had a falling out with Facebook over “data hoarding.”

In short, Facebook will not allow users to export contact lists to Google’s email system, and Google retaliated by blocking users from adding Gmail contacts to Facebook. But Facebook found a loop-hole, and did it anyway.

Have we really come to a point in time where web-based e-mail is outdated and we have to settle with social networking, combined with it’s own e-mail service?

Think about all the privacy issues Facebook has had to put up with in past. Can you honestly say that this can be used as a platform for sending and receiving important, sensitive data? I’m not convinced myself. Especially in the last vein. Imagine being hacked, or duped into clicking one of those fake wall posts or ads (who clicks them anyway!?), and having not just your social networking profile, but every single email contained in it open to the hacker. And lets not even get in to talking about spam emails. That is another kettle of fish.

As you can see, there is plenty to debate when talking about an e-mail service that is integrated with a social networking platform, especially as big as Facebook. In our previous article, where we broke the news about Facebook’s suspected new service, we had a few comments regarding Facebook e-mail, and here is what a few of you had to say.

Jim said: – No. They have zero respect for privacy and I don’t want them in my personal business that deeply

Mary said: - Email needs to be reliable. Facebook doesnt know how to run a reliable sevice

Dilly said: – I have trust issues with Facebook and would never have an e-mail account with them.

As you can see, the outlook does not immediately look good for Facebook, so we thought we’d knock up a little poll for you to take part in. We also want your views on this, and ask you what things you want Facebook to include in their new mail service, when it goes live.
[poll id="280"]

The service is expected to be announced at a Facebook press conference this evening in San Francisco, where they will talk about and unveil a fully-fleged web-based email product, that will provide every single one of the 500 million users with an @facebook.com email address.

The project, known as ‘Project Titan’ is being labelled as a ‘Gmail-killer’ and will be the replacement service for the current messaging system that allows users to privately message one-another from their Facebook accounts.

A Facebook Email service, does make sense considering the amount of users it has, and according to Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum, he thinks that Facebook is “giving them (users) richer ways to do this (to share and communicate) through virtual gifts, games, location and even voice thanks to the recent integration deal with Skype.”

Add Email to the mix, and you can expect to see Facbook tap into a market that is currently dominated by web email products such as AOL, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft.

The question is, will you use Facebook email?

Source: Daily Mail

Overall the addition is great news for all Gmail users, and may convince some of you to switch from Skype to Google Voice. That said, there are still a few changes and additions that users like me would like to see.

Calling Packages – Although the service is only limited to users in the US for the time being, all calls to the United States and Canada are free for the foreseeable future. If you want to make international calls, you will be charged 2 cents per minute, but what if you make regular calls internationally? Like Skype, Google should implement calling packages to other countries for a specific rate. You could even add region specific packages that let you call European countries, or even the world for a monthly (or yearly) fee.

Make The Service Global – Gmail is currently available worldwide, therefore the entire Google-sphere should be able to access the service no matter where you are. As we stated earlier, the service is only active in the US for the time being, and I’m sure that users will want to take advantage of Google Voice within Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. Google do have plans to roll out the service internationally, but no immediate word from Google on that yet.

Add-ons – We all love add-ons and extensions for our browser, heck, we’ve already got a Google Voice add-on for Chrome, as well as Firefox too. But it would be ideal for Google Voice to be added to the add-ons department aswell. Skype already have this feature, so I think it is only a matter of time before Google offers the same service.

If Google could agree and to all these things above, Google Voice has the potential to become the best VoIP service out there. But until they do, i’ll be happy with what they are offering at present. Skype users shouldn’t feel the need to switch, but give it a look just for the sake of it. You may even prefer it.

Google Voice or Skype — what is your preference?

Source: PC World

The feature should be implemented within your Gmail chat list over the coming days, where the service will be free to all US and Canadian numbers with international rates coming in at $0.02 per minute.

For those of you who are wondering, you do not need to have a Google Voice account to use Gmail voice calls, but the benefit of having one is that when you make outgoing calls, that will be used as your global caller ID. If you are unsure about the service, and do not have a Google Voice account but would like to take advantage of the phone call service, check out these instructions provided by Google themselves.

Google have also released a short video promoting the use of the feature that can be seen after the break below.

Google Voice in Gmail? Is it a revolution?

Source: SlashGear

Samuel Axon of Mashable.com is reporting in an article that the screenshot was included in a Chromium OS bug report. Eagle eyed Gmail users instantly noticed some changes with Contacts, Mail and Tasks have been moved to the top left of the screen.

Immediately below these options is the Compose Mail that is now an actual button, also Select None and Select All are now found from a drop down box above the Inbox option. A feature which could be for Google Voice integration is a new Call Phone button.

It must be remembered that this is a Google employee version of Gmail which may differ from our version anyway, but it could be that Google are trying out some new features before releasing to the general public.

Click here to read the full article. Do you like the look of the possible changes?

PC World has been looking into the changes, explaining all about those six new features and those five that have been thrown in the bin. Those new ones are Search Autocomplete, Go To Label, Forgotten Attachment Detector, YouTube Previews, Custom Label Colors and Vacation Resonder.

We are certain that these new features will be very useful, but we cannot help that other important ones have been missed. Those five dumped features are as follows, Muzzle, Fixed Width Font, E -mail Addict, Location in Signature and Random Signature. Google seems to be a lot of update lately, they recently had to update their privacy options on Buzz following a number of complaints, which you can read more about here.

Are you are happy with the changes that Google have made to Gmail?