Does anyone know why the Gmail app won't run full-screen when you launch it from the home screen? It really annoys me that so much of my iPhone's small screen is taken up by Safari instead of the app.
The downside is that going to other domains/subdomains from a webapp launched that way forces a user into Safari anyways, through a somewhat jarring app-switch-transition. Since Google has an ecosystem of mobile apps they'd like you to switch between they don't want you to feel trapped in just one at a time.
javascript:var%20meta=document.createElement(%22meta%22);meta.name=%22apple-mobile-web-app-capable%22;meta.content=%22yes%22;document.getElementsByTagName('head')%5B0%5D.appendChild(meta);
Note: on an iPhone 2G, a page set up like this loads very slowly compared to inside Safari. The iPad allegedly being much faster, it might not be a problem. You do have the issue with external links opening Safari, but with the iPhone, the difference in screen real-estate is fairly significant.
Btw, an easier way is just to paste the code into the address bar.
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Appl...
Google probably assumes email is closely tied with browsing.
I think I click a link in ~5% of emails I read.
And even in that 5%, the time it seems to take for it to exit a full-screen HTML5 app and load Safari seems to be about the same as the time as it takes for a new tab to open when I open a link in the Gmail app (already in Safari).
If only there was some way to run two applications at once...