Arguably a little late to the party, Yahoo! today announced the release of their very first Android apps for Messenger and Mail, a Yahoo! search widget for your home screen and some HTML5-optimized sites for the iPhone.
The Messenger app does pretty much what you’d expect: it allows you to chat with your Yahoo!/MSN friends, and can run in the background (with push notifications) for that always-on availability. If you live in Canada, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, United States, or Vietnam, you can also use the app to send SMS to friends, which will appear in the current conversation. Oh, and it supports emoticons, because it ain’t IM without emoticons.
The Mail app is also a no-brainer, and allows you to check, search, organise, and send mail from your Yahoo! email account, as well as download/upload attachments. It can use both your Yahoo! address book, as well as the one on your phone, so you should be able to find the email address you need. And, like the Messenger app, it also supports push notifications and emoticons.
As you can see in the screenshot, there is a button in both of the apps that allows you to switch between Messenger and Mail. I guess there’s a need for that.
And, finally, the Search Widget does pretty much everything that the Google version does, including local search, voice search, and suggestions as you type.
If you like what you hear, you can download the applications from the Android Market by scanning the barcodes below. Otherwise, a quick market search for “Yahoo” will also do the trick.
And don’t forget to check out the gallery below for some screenshots.
In addition, Yahoo has launched new HTML5 mobile websites for the iPhone and iPod touch. The company has released a HTML5 site for Yahoo! Mail in 28 languages, in over 200 countries. It is expected to be available via other Webkit-enabled browsers in the ‘near future’.
Get started by visiting m.yahoo.com/mail on your iPhone browser, and tap on ‘Preview the new Yahoo! Mail’; alternatively, you can click here from your iPhone.
Yahoo! News has also been made HTML5-compliant, including an all-new layout with animated visual effects and navigation that uses touch gestures. Currently available in the U.S. on the iPhone or iPod touch browser, the product is expected to become available in additional countries and on additional devices at some point.
[via Talk Android]
