Google has released an updated version of the native Gmail app for iOS. It’s now available as a free download from the App Store.

The Gmail app initially launched about two weeks ago, but Google pulled it almost immediately after users reported that push notifications weren’t working and an error message popped up whenever they first launched the app. I’ve been using the app on my iPod touch for the last few weeks despite these limitations, and I’ve found it to be generally faster and easier to use than the Gmail web app, if not quite as slick as the Gmail app for Android.

Gmail 1.0.2 for iOS supports touch-based gestures that let you refresh your inbox by swiping down, or view your labels by swiping from left to right. You can also send email messages with file attachments.

Google says future updates will improve the way images look, support for multiple accounts, and better notifications.

It’s been about four years since the iPhone hit the market, and more than three years since the App Store opened for business. So it’s about time Google finally got around to releasing a native Gmail app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad… which is exactly what the company did today.

Update: The app has been pulled from the App Store temporarily while Google fixes a bug. 

Update 11/16/11: And now it’s back and everything seems to be working properly. 

While Google’s mobile web app for Gmail is pretty good, the new app is faster, offers a cleaner look, and adds a number of features that you don’t get with the web app.

You can download Gmail for iOS for free from the App Store.

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Gmail mobile web app

There’s a rumor going around that Google has finally developed an official Gmail app for iOS and submitted it to Apple for approval. It will allow users to send and receive email without firing up a web browser — and it will support push email, which is something the web app simply can’t do.

Don’t get me wrong, Google’s mobile web apps for Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, and other services are excellent demonstrations of just what you can do with a modern mobile web browser.

But a web app doesn’t collect messages for reading offline when the browser is closed. It doesn’t send you notifications when new messages appear. And even if you link the native iOS Mail app to your Gmail account you don’t get Push notifications — or the ability to use Gmail features such as Priority Inbox, starred messages, or labels.

MG Siegler reports that those are likely just some of the features that will be included in the native Gmail app once it’s approved… if it’s approved.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs was almost giddy with excitement over the prospect of the web browser as the most important app. If developers wanted to write apps for the iPhone, all they had to do was create web sites that could be accessed in Mobile Safari.

It didn’t take long for developers to insist that the browser wasn’t good enough, and that they wanted a native software developer kit, and the following year Apple caved, launched the App Store, and the rest is history.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s taken Google four years to jump on board with a native Gmail app. Google shares Jobs’ early vision of web apps replacing native apps, even though the company has been building native apps for Android for the last few years. But the truth is that there are still some things that work best in a native app which is more tightly integrated with the operating system than a browser-based app.

Update: The Gmail app for iOS is now available for download.

Siri is one of the most talked-about features of the new iPhone 4S. Sure, Apple’s latest phone also has a dual core processor which offers better performance than the chips found in the iPhone 4 or the latest iPod touch. But Apple’s new voice-assist service which lets you ask your phone questions — and get real answers is the show-stopping feature that makes the iPhone 4S special.

But it turns out that there’s really no technical reason Siri couldn’t run on older iOS devices. Apple just doesn’t offer it for any device other than the iPhone 4S.

That’s despite the fact that Siri was a standalone, third-party app until Apple bought the company that makes the software and incorporated the technology into iOS 5.

In fact, hackers have been trying to figure out how to port Siri to run on older iPhones and other iOS devices for the last few weeks — and now Steven Troughton-Smith has managed to get it working.

Up until now, we’ve seen a few folks get the software to start running — but since Siri needs to contact Apple’s servers to actually answer your questions, it wasn’t fully functional.

Troughton-Smith managed to grab some files from an iPhone 4S, copy them to an iPhone 4 and show Siri working perfectly.
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Nimbuzz offers mobile apps that let you chat with or make free calls to other Nimbuzz users, or cheap calls to phone numbers. The iPhone app supports video calls, while you can also make voice-only calls from the Nimbuzz Android and Symbian apps.

Now the company has also  launched a PC app for Mac or Windows which means you can place a call from a desktop or laptop computer to your Nimbuzz contacts.

Sure, Nimbuzz is hardly the first company to offer this feature. Skype has had a cross-platform video app for ages — and Skype Linux as well as Windows and OS X.

But if your contacts are using Nimbuzz rather than Skype for one reason or another, it’s nice to know you can now call them from your desk without pulling out a phone first.

The new Nimbuzz PC app is available as a free download. You can also use it as a cross-platform instant messenger app. It supports Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Windows Live, Yahoo, and AOL messenger services, among others.

Nimbuzz will be rolling out video calling support for Android and Symbian soon as well.

via IntoMobile

The iPhone Dev Team has released an updated version of the ultrasn0w tool that adds support for iOS 5. You can use ultrasn0w to carrier unlock an iPhone. In other words, this is the tool you need if you want to use an AT&T iPhone with T-Mobile or another network.

In order to use ultrasn0w, you have to jailbreak your device. There’s a way to perform a tethered jailbreak on most devices running iOS 5, but you’ll need to connect your iPhone or iPad to a computer and run the jailbreak tool again every time you reboot. The only device that supports an untethered jailbreak right now is the iPhone 3GS with an older bootrom.

While ultrasn0w 1.2.4 now supports iOS 5, it does not work with newer basebands. In other words, if you’re already using ultrasn0w to unlock your device and you want to upgrade to iOS 5, you’ll need to use redsn0w to create a custom IPSW that preserves your older baseband.

You can currently do that with redsn0w for OS X. The Windows version will get that feature soon.

The latest version of ultrasn0w is available for download from the Cydia Store for jailbroken devices. While the new app adds support for iOS 5, it’s also backward compatible, so you can use it to unlock a device running iOS 4 as well — as long as you have a supported baseband.

It’s been a long time coming, but Facebook has finally released an official iPad app. Users have been able to run the iPhone app on an iPad, but let’s be honest — it looks awful on a 9.7 inch display. The new iPad app has been designed to take advantage of the extra screen real estate and give you access to most of the important features available from the Facebook website.

There’s a new multi-pane view, with a menu bar on the left side that lets you navigate to your news feed, photos, messages, or other areas. There are also two-panel views in several different sections. For instance, the Messages section shows a list of conversations on the left and details of your messages on the right. Notifications show up in a sort of pop-up menu that displays over the top of any screen you’re currently on when you tap the notification icon.

You can also view photos or videos or play games in full screen mode.

The new iPad app isn’t the first tablet-friendly Facebook app. The company released an app for the discontinued HP TouchPad tablet this summer. But there’s still no Facebook app available for Android tablets.

Facebook for iPad is available as a free download from the App Store.

Last year Apple acquired Siri, a company working on voice recognition/personal assistant software for mobile devices. Today Apple explained what it will do with Siri: Not surprisingly, voice recognition and voice commands will be built into the new iPhone 4S.

Apple’s Scott Forstall showed off the new feature today by demonstrating how you can ask the phone questions and receive answers thanks to integration with Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha. Here are a few examples:

• You can have Siri read your text messages or notifications to you.
• You can ask for a weather forecast.
• Ask for nearby restaurant listings.
• Get word definitions.
• Ask how many days there are until Christmas.

The company also showed off a new voice input feature that lets you enter text on your device by hitting a microphone icon on the keyboard — much the way you already can with most Android devices.

Voice recognition is available in English, French and German, and will launch initially in beta.