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Comment by jsz0 | Hacker News Reader

The big problem I have with Android apps is just how terrible the GUIs are. They range from mediocre to unusable. For example:

K-9 Mail on Android: http://tiny.cc/l965n

Mail on iPhone: http://tiny.cc/ss4e9

HTC Mail on Android: http://tiny.cc/b2f6m

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Might as well throw the normal GMail app into the mix: http://smarterware.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/android21-... (via http://smarterware.org/4308/android-2-1s-best-features-in-sc...).

It seems odd that GMail's interface is so horrible to use when Google Reader's is awesome. I actually like the mobile version of Reader better than the desktop version, currently. I wonder if they're made by the same team...

I should add that I mean the mobile versions of both. GMail's desktop interface is great.

I love Android and use a Droid as my phone but I totally agree with you, theu really need to step up with their UI.

It seems that they know this. They hired the lead designer for WebOS a while back and according to TechCrunch the next release after Froyo is all UI stuff: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/16/android-team-laser-focused-...

One can write good looking apps for Android. It's just not as easy as it is for iPhone. Having done both myself: on iPhone you can just throw together a bunch of default widgets to get the job done and your app will look pretty good. Doing the same on android.. not so much.

However, the latest apps out of Google (IO Schedule, Twitter) are using some of android's new UI patters, and they look good. Hopefully these new designs will be reflected more in the widgets shipped with 2.3.

I heard that the gmail client was much better than the android general mail client. How do you feel about it?

(btw mail for iOS is not a very good mail client either, though it looks pretty nice and has been improved a bit in iOS4)

That's true. Hopefully I have only gmail account that I use frequently, I also have me/mac.com one, but I rarely use it.

Google shines in the web also with gmail.com, while somehow Mac's me.com feels slow, also their Mail client is not that good either, but the rest of the Apps are top-notch.

And Mail for iPhone rocks! Too bad I don't use my iPhone as phone, just for developing (T-Mobile customer with G1).

The mail application on Android feels very clunky, but I think the gmail application on both Android and iPhone are pretty comparable in terms of features/flow.

The GMail client is OK but it's lacking in the feature department. No option for a 2-3 line preview of the message body, when composing a message you can't pick contacts from your GMail contacts or local address book -- you have to type in the addresses each time, as far as I can tell it doesn't support copy & paste.

No multiline is a fair point. Message composition auto-fills the recipient when you start typing - I can get to my intended recipient in 1-2 taps, usually. I prefer it that way, though I can see how others might now. You can, though, just tap a contact's email to start a new email to them. It certainly does support copy-paste, though. I'm on 2.2, so that may be part of it, perhaps?

Every input field supports "select all", cut, copy & paste at least since 1.5.

Doesn't work on 2.1 Seems to be a known issue:

http://bit.ly/bQUdvU

The general client doesn't do search of any kind, not with IMAP at least. Pretty sad for the number one search company in the world.

A huge issue with the gmail client is that you cant send-mail-as. I have my school account hooked up to gmail using my schools SMTP server but I cant't send mail as that email address from the phone.

If any Google engineers are reading this. Please fix this. This is a huge issue.

Btw this double post wasn't intentional.

I'm using K-9 on my HTC Desire and Apple mail on my iPad and I like both. Note that the GUI of my K-9 application is different than the one you show. Keep in mind that they may iterate, which BTW is apparently more easy on Andoid than on AppleStore.

Anyway, generalizing on your personal experience and taste is not very instructive.

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