Gmail Mobile 1.5 Released

There's a new version for Gmail's Java application for mobile phones. Gmail Mobile 1.5 makes it easier to access your contacts by adding an option in the menu. If you click on a contact, you'll see the same information available in Gmail's desktop interface: a photo, the email addresses, the phone numbers and other notes. If you entered the phone number in your contact's details, you can call him directly from Gmail.

The application lets you save an unfinished message for sending it later. The weird thing is that the message is saved on your phone, not in Drafts, and you can only have one unfinished message at any given time.

If you care about your Internet traffic, Gmail shows the bandwidth usage every time it loads data. There's also an option for encrypting your traffic, but this is not recommended because it slows down the app.

But the most surprising feature (if you can call this a feature) is the thing that helped Hotmail grow, but it's still a big annoyance in the free versions of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail: the ad automatically added at the end of your message. Gmail Mobile 1.5 appends by default to your message:

"Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com"

Fortunately, you can disable Google's promotional message by going to the settings and unchecking the last option.

Gmail Mobile 1.5 seems to have a worse performance than the previous versions and it's still incompatible with Google Apps accounts. This release is currently available only in English.

To install it or upgrade from an older version, visit gmail.com/app from your mobile phone. If that doesn't work or you want to download the file from your computer, try this direct link. To revert to Gmail Mobile 1.1.1, install this file.