Google released a Java Midlet Gmail client for mobile devices today. So, of course, right off the bat it doesn’t work with my Dell Axim X50v (Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition) or T-Mobile SDA (Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone). My i-Mate K-JAM (Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition) has a Java runtime, however. So, I was able to install and test it there. Couple of thoughts.
- The fonts look horrible on he 240×320 LCD. The fonts are small and jaggy (aliased).
- The scrollbar on the right is razor thin. I guess this is ok on a phone/smartphone device. But, it is difficult to grab with a stylus on a PDA type device. Of course, the navigation buttons work on a Pocket PC. So, I could use it instead of a stylus. But, when I am using a stylus, I don’t want to have to put it down just to scroll a page.
- Navigation through a threaded message list is fast. But the navigation is not as intuitive as it could be. Clicking on a thread item’s tab expands or collapses it. But, it is not immediately obvious.
- The menus look ok when my K-JAM is used in portrait mode but are truncated at the bottom when I’m using it in landscape mode (keyboard pulled out).
Google should go back to the drawing board for this one. They should also take a good look at the Yahoo! Mobile web interface. Yahoo’s mobile web interface is a relatively simple HTML one that seems to work with everything, is easy to understand, and look fine on pretty much any screen.
Gmail Jar on Windows Mobile is tedious, at best. Sure, it “works,” but it’s best for longer duration e-mail reading. It’s much faster to use Windows Mobile built-in IMAP or POP to read gmail and other accounts.
An actual Windows Mobile “Gmail Mobile” native application would be amazing, but I have not heard any indication that that will ever exist. There’s the Blackberry version, which essentially caters to the corporate users already.
based on http://msmobiles.com/news.php/5729.html you can download the JVM required by this app here: http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/preconfig.jsp?id=2006-07-05+07%3A13%3A09.831043R&S_TACT=104CBW71&S_CMP=
(free registration required)
from the msmobiles page:
Depending on which Windows Mobile phone you have, select one of those:
* CLDC 1.1/MIDP 2.0 for Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Edition/ARM
* CLDC 1.1/MIDP 2.0 for Windows Mobile 5.0/ARM
* CLDC 1.1/MIDP 2.0 VGA (Hi-Res) for Windows Mobile 5.0/ARM
Obviously you can do the “RTFM routine” i.e. you can read included install.pdf manual, but roughly speaking this what we did, to get it installed is:
* first we have copied content of C:\Program Files\IBM\WEME\runtimes\61\wm50-arm-midp20\weme-wm50-arm-midp20_6.1.0.20060727-102926.zip to some intermediary folder, for example c:\tmp-wm
* then we copied the contents of this intermediary folder, through activesync to \Program Files\java on the Windows Mobile device
* then we started .exe program with “midp” in name from \Program Files\java\bin and afer selecting “Install” from menu we entered URL to the JAD file of Gmail, which is: http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Generic-Advanced_MIDP2.jad and this program in turn has downloaded related JAR file http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gmail-g.jar and installed it
* after installation the Gmail starts and after entering user name and password you can use your Gmail very comfortably in your Windows Mobile phone!
The fonts are indeed horrible on newer higher resolution devices (I just checked a Cingular 3125 and it’s near illegible). My older SMT5600 actually looks a lot better. However, you can increase the font size, which helps a LOT, IMO…
From the main message screen, hit Menu, Go To…, Settings, unselect “Use small fonts” which is on by default. Exit the Gmail midlet COMPLETELY, then restart it. Should look much better.
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