SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. has released a downloadable version of its e-mail client GMail for mobile phones. The Mountain View, Calif-based company already has its search customized for the mobile user, but the email client was not yet on the small screens.
The free software for GMail is available only in the US at the moment and is compatible with more than 300 cell phones. Users can download the software by pointing the Web browser at http://gmail.com/app or by simply sending a text message containing the software to their phone from a PC.
However ads will not be present on the mobile Gmail unlike its search counterpart. "We want to provide relevance and targeted ads, but with a cell phone's small screen and all that, it's tricky," explained Tony Hsieh, product manager with Google's mobile unit. "Because it is an application and not running through a browser ... it looks and feels like Gmail on the desktop."
The new service called Gmail for mobile retains many of the features available on PCs and is accompanied by automatic synchronization so that any emails read on the phone show up as already read when you switch on your PC.
Phones from Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile and Cingular will carry the service, while Google plans to expand it to other countries and languages over time. It may be noted that the handsets need to be able to run Java software in order to read Gmail.
Any attachments like Word of PDF files are instantly viewable on the phone and are resized to fit the screen, Google said.
