Unofficial news and tips about Google

April 9, 2010

Use Gmail for iPad in Google Chrome

Google has recently released a version of Gmail optimized for iPad, Apple's lightweight computer. Gmail for iPad is similar to the iPhone version, but the main difference is that Gmail has a reading pane.

"We're launching an experimental two-pane user interface to take advantage of its large touchscreen and tablet form factor. Building upon the Gmail for mobile web app, this new interface displays your conversations on the left and your messages on the right hand side."

Here's how to create a Google Chrome shortcut that launches Gmail for iPad:

2. create a shortcut by clicking on the page menu and selecting "create application shortcuts"

3. you'll see a Gmail shortcut on your desktop and you'll need to edit it. If you use Windows, right-click on the shortcut, select "Properties", go to the target field and append a space, followed by this value (a short version of iPad's user-agent and a new Chrome profile):

If you have the too long problem, the fastest way to fix it is just leave alone at the begining chrome.exe without the path in the target and be sure you've got the correct path in the start in section.

I tried this in Windows Vista and it works. Apparently, Windows XP has a limit of 259 characters for the target value.

There are various ways to make the target value shorter (use http://gmail.com instead of http://mail.google.com, remove some characters from the user-agent:" like Mac OS X"). You could also create a .bat file with a single line:

start TARGET_VALUE(where TARGET_VALUE is the value of the target field)

You're right about the user-agent issue. When you click on the Gmail shortcut, you change Chrome's user-agent and all the other tabs inherit the new user-agent. That's why you'll see Google's mobile homepage when you go to google.com. The solution is to open the Gmail app only when no other Chrome window is open. Closing all Chrome windows changes the user-agent to the default value.

Ok sorry. I tried it on another computer and it doesn't work, but it works with my Google Chrome without any UA changes. I can load both the desktop version of Gmail and iPad version of Gmail simultaneously. I'm on beta channel.

Works great in Chrome on Ubuntu linux. Very easy to do. Although in linux I can just drag a website to the desktop in chrome or firefox and create a link. For ease of use I'll use the link that anon poster #6 said....

None of the direct link suggestions work for me. There might still be some javascript-trick that could be used to get the iPad-version.

A suitable workaround could be to install a version of Chromium to use only for email.This version http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/42899/ (a developer build) might be bug-free enough for this purpose.

Since Apple doesn't allow two frames to scroll with one finger (you would have to scroll with two fingers, which is not very intuitive), Apple released some events (ontouch{start|end|move}), and these are only available on iPhone OS devices, so no scroll on PCs/Macs.

Here's what the post says: "Use the app only when no other Chrome window is open because the command-line flag changes the user-agent for all other web pages." To reset the user-agent, close all Chrome windows.

Regarding the limitations of the target field, it's not my fault that Windows only lets you use 259 characters and that iPad's user-agent is really long.

I'm using Windows XP and I got this to work ok after a few minor issues.

I think the Gmail iPad interface looks quite different but fairly cool. When you click the links, you see the other iPad interfaces like Reader and Calendar and so on. You can definitely imagine how the touch-screen functionality would add to the experience.

For all with XP, I had the character limit problem for the shortcut as well, but it's easy to get around using batch files (.bat).

Just create a standard text file and save it somewhere, calling it something like ipadGmail.bat. Most important thing is the .bat obviously.

The general format for the code for launching programs using a batch file is:

Instead of telling people to only use this shortcut when no other Chrome windows are open, have people specify a different profile for the app shortcut with the "--user-data-dir=" switch. Then they can run their normal Chrome windows and the iPad Gmail shortcut simultaneously.

Hi Alex,Great tip. Turns out to be very useful for other small touch screen devices, like the O2 Joggler. I've noted this tip in the forum for that device here: http://www.joggler.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=560Thanks!

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