GMail goes IMAP… Still sucks on the Treo

For the first time in my Googling experience, I am very disappointed.

The specific lack of Versamail IMAP support for the Treo is just one more frustrating blow to Treo users that are increasingly being left out of Google’s projects.

The Gmail Java client was not very strong and rather quite buggy with screen flickering and lack of key mapping support. However the BlackBerry version of GMail was rather impressive.

Of course we all used some kind of workaround to get POP up and running on more than one client (Treo & Notebook). Mine consisted of creating a second GMail account for the Treo and forwarding all my mail to this account. This meant not having sent emails stored in my main account and notebook for off line use as well as having to manually sync all my mail once a week to mark everything read. This was never ideal and would often break, causing me to reset my GMail account on the Treo and then download all my messages again. And you could never really delete old messages, this morning before the IMAP switch, I had over 547 emails on the Treo, at least 400 of them I really did not need.

Google Maps on the Treo is still nowhere near as powerful or easy to use as the iPhone version although it has come a long way. And of course the lack of traffic info for Canada is frustrating, especially when you are constantly reminded of the feature. HINT: We are still 35 million Canucks who also get stuck in traffic! Ever been anywhere near Montreal during normal work hours? Or the world’s longest parking lot: the 401 in Toronto.

Palm has never had so many different versions of the Treo out both Palm OS and Windows. On some networks in Canada, the options are limited do their technology choice. Bell and Telus operate CDMA and the only real high speed network with national coverage, Ev-DO, and is therefore prevalent in the corporate world, the Treo it is the only real alternative to the BlackBerry as the HTC and Motorola Windows devices have yet to make a dent and to be quite frank are still quite flaky. The Palm EAS update which allow push email from Exchange 2003 servers is great and FREE as long as your company has the appropriate MS Server. Other IMAP clients work great as well. It’s just disappointing to see Google launch IMAP and make it compatible with Windows, MAC OS X, Symbian, BlackBerry and yet leave out Palm; the first and longest running smartphone on the market.

Palm conspiracy theorists are probably blogging all kinds of outlandish claims. Phone Pundits are probably seeing this as yet another GPhone hint.
I am simply disappointed

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