A lot of people complain about Gmail not having a native application on the iPhone. While it’s not clear if Apple will even allow that yet with the new iPhone 3.0 SDK, one thing that is becoming more clear: Soon it won’t need one.
The reason is that its iPhone-optimized mobile version continues to get some killer features. The latest is the ability to use the swipe gesture to archive messages — yes, within the browser. Users of the iPhone’s native mail app will recognize and appreciate this functionality (though in that app it’s used to delete messages, not archive them).
This follows the mobile version of Gmail gaining a floating toolbar that gives users easy access to certain functions no matter where they are on the screen. And soon, with full HTML 5 support, mobile Gmail will feature offline browsing of messages, which is perhaps the main reason people want a native app right now.
This is all the more reason to become a Gmail Ninja.