igmailI do all my email in Gmail.  Nothing comes close to it’s feature set.  Well now, there’s an app for that.  iGmail is a native app for the iPhone that does more than just give you access to your mobile Gmail page.  It does that as well, but adds some really nice features that, in my book, make it worth the $1.99 price.  First, you are able to use the app while offline.  This includes a list of your contacts (with the top 20 most used addresses sorted for easy access), and the ability to write or respond to email and have it saved as drafts for the next time you are online.

Other nice features include an optional menu to get to your Google Calendar, Chat, News, and other Google products, the ability to view email full-screen, shaking your device to select or de-select the emails on the screen, and a unique overlay of icons for easy navigation.  There is even a built-in browser for viewing the web version of your mailbox or any HTML email you receive.  You can tell this was put together by a real Gmail lover and a lot of thinking went into it.

Having said that, there is a big elephant in the room that I must address.  The one HUGE missing piece of this application is push notifications.  If it were to add that, it would definitely be worth the $1.99 price point.  As it is, I’d really recommend it for the heavy Gmail user, but not the casual user.  If you are just a casual user, I’d wait for either push notifications or it going on sale again for $0.99.

Overall, as a heavy user of Gmail, I’m pleased with the $1.99 purchase.  The developer is still working on the app and promising more updates.  I am looking forward to what the future holds for it.  Unfortunately though, the developer’s web site is down and the only way to get suggestions to them appears to be the reviews on the iTunes store.