http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/04/google-services-on-ipad-and-tablet.html

<<Here at Google we’re really excited about the promise of tablet computers, which will be great for browsing the web and using apps. We’ve been working hard to optimize our services for the new format – larger touchscreens, increased portability, rich sensors – and we’d like to share some information about our progress so far.>>

If you want to test it on Chrome Mac OS X : open terminal and type

open -a Google Chrome --new --args -user-agent="Mozilla/5.0(iPad; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B314 Safari/531.21.10"

Or use the user-agent string written above in any other browser.

http://memory.jeremilhau.fr/ipad1.png

http://memory.jeremilhau.fr/ipad2.png

» [...] To take advantage of the iPad’s large display, we’ve created a two-pane view with your list of conversations on the left and messages to the right. [...] «
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4GHuwMk1foo/S7Yk0gKNDGI/AAAAAAAAAjA/hS_Tz5W_lDI/s400/ipad_ss_3.png
There's something I don't get about this UI: we have far bigger laptop/ desktop screens at our disposal, yet no ordinary Gmail client offers such overview/ two-views-at-a-glance possibility as that. ?WHY?

Also, the panes seem malplaced by design – because, if we consider the message content pane to be the more important of the two, shouldn't that come first, anchored to left margin of display, with the index list abutting the right hand one? As it is the list occupies the more attention-worthy part of the screen [worthy to left-to-right-script Western readers]. I presume this is how it is specified in Apple HCI guidelines, but, given importance of the Gmail client, shouldn't we at least be given the option of rearranging the order of the basic panes to suit our preferences?

Where will the Gmail ads fit into that layout?

My guess is that ads will eventually be at the top right above the first msg or a one line ad above each msg in the right panel when applicable. That'll probably take a while though since they'll want to get substantial usage of it first. Get people addicted, then slide in some ads.

It's nice they are finally implementing the msg preview pane. Now, we just need it in the desktop version.

Also, they still need to add sorting options to Gmail (any version). I know you can use search as a type of sort, but that is still no replacement for true sorting by date, sender, subject, etc. Fast sorting by clicking column headers is the most missed feature (along with the preview pane) for me coming from Outlook, which I use at work.

You are correct that lots of people ask for sorting, but I've never understood why.

Why would one want to sort by sender, like this...

   Jane Smith
   John Taylor
   Josephson Tires LLC
   Joyriders Mailing List
   Kara Samuelson

When one has looked at messages from John Taylor, why would one be more likely to want to look at Jane Smith or Josephson Tires next, rather than Zacchary Williams or Aaron Adams?

The same with sorting by subject...

   Next week's party
   Nexus
   Oallen Residents Association Minutes
   Obstetric Services in NYC
   Ocams Razor Discussion
   Order your easter eggs now!

After I've been reading the Oallen Residents Association Minutes, why would I possibly want to have the subjects "Nexus" and "Obstetric Services" displayed?

I share Google's astonishment. If you have great search, why would you want column sorting?

Roger, sorting is for averbal, visual-orientation searches, ie. when you look for something you can't quite name, yet instinctively know you'd recognize when you see it (an older version of Eudora offered compound sorting, e.g. by name and ascending date, which was very powerful tool in itself). It works very well for subsets of limited-range – such as last |couple of screenfuls of] messages.

By comparison, Google's search presupposes fair degree of analytical AND taxonometric ability on the part of the user – to find anything you first need to recall, delimit, and explicitly name the concept, preferably with some precision.

To come back to the layout thing, Google Wave is a good example for me of efficient 3 columns layout. I would love to read my gmail in a Wave-like client.

To bad: Firefox does load the iPad version of the Gmail interface with the User Switcher extension but it´s not like in the screenshot above. When setting the user-agent in Safari it doesn't work, the extension for Google Chrome doesn't work at all.

It works for me when setting the user-agent in safari

Works for me too in chrome. (cf screen captures above)

> Roger, sorting is for averbal, visual-orientation searches, ie.
> when you look for something you can't quite name, yet
> instinctively know you'd recognize

That doesn't explain how it can help to have emails sorted alphabetically by subject.

Suppose I'm looking for my flight reservations. The subject of the email is probably something like "Your confirmed flight details", and is going to be sorted under "Y".

So when I'm looking for it, I just type "flights" into search, and if that doesn't work I try "reservations" or the name of the airline. Sorting by subject and scrolling to "Y" doesn't do anything for me.

When I set the user-agent in Safari I get the interface for the iPhone it seems, don't know for sure (Yes, I'm that guy that doesn't have an iPhone :-)). It's definitely not the interface for the iPad. Google Chrome on Windows 7 can set the user-agent by modifying a dll file, but that´s to much work :-).