Froyo users get a Gmail for Android update

I woke up this morning to a familiar sight. The Market icon appeared in my status bar, meaning I had applications that needed updating. Among them were doubleTwist, an update we’ll get to later this afternoon, and Barcode Scanner. The oddest one, though, was for Gmail. I’d never seen an update through the Market before. As far as I knew, Gmail updates came with platform updates, so this was definitely something new. Then an update from the Google Mobile Blog hit my RSS reader, and everything made more sense. For Android users running version 2.2, Gmail can now be updated via the Market rather than via a system update. That means more frequent improvements. The ones today look particularly good. As you can see in the shot below, the main functions remain atop the screen as you scroll down. These include the sender name, plus the star, reply, and the more actions buttons. No longer will you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of an email to reply. You can also tap the “Show quoted text” link to expand the conversation in the same manner you can in the desktop version. And finally the new Gmail for Android implements the priority inbox feature.

Again, the only unfortunate aspect of this update is that it’s available only for Froyo users. I’m sure that if you have a Froyo device that you’ve already seen the Market update. If not, you can scan the QR code below. I really hope that Google gets this out for at least 2.1 users. Scrolling to the bottom for the reply button was easily my least favorite part of the Gmail for Android app.