Ewan's not one to beat around the bush - when he thinks that an application is essentially pointless, he comes right out and says so, here in his review of Yahoo! Go 3.0. In Go 3.0's defense, it IS pretty and it DOES make sense if you're a heavy Yahoo! user, but in essence it doesn't really do anything you couldn't do just as well using Yahoo's mobile site. Or Google's, and so on.
Read on in the full article.
Although I'm not particularly interested in Yahoo services, I thought I'd try this and was interested to see that following the supplied URL, I was faced with a lovely Welcome screen which even knew what phone I had (!) saying "Yahoo! invites you to upgrade to our best mobile experience for your Nokia E90 Communicator" then on the next screen "We're sorry! Your phone currently doesn't support Yahoo! Go". Ha! More like BT (British Telecom) every day! Actually, they're in cahoots aren't they?!
My wife is a Yahoo bod and she uses this client on her N81 and I have to admit that she can get to her email an awful lot quicker than I can, firing up my GMail app.
Tim
Yahoo! Go and GMail are both Java apps and should load in the same amount of time.
Although, wierdly, I've noticed that GMail does get slower with time. Maybe it starts caching stuff that then needs clearing out somehow? Anyone able to shed more light on GMail? And I *wish* they'd not a native S60 version...
hmmm, maybe the fact that they are completely different programs has something to do with the different startup times.
Yes, who knows what the Gmail java app does at startup (parsing a local XML file containing your existing inbox would be an educated guess) but since it is a different app to Yahoo the startup time could be entirely different! Surely app startup depends upon the size of the app and what the code does at startup rather than just "is it Java or native code"?
Any way, a native S60 version of the Gmail app is long overdue, the existing version does - sometimes - take a frustratingly long time to start, and I am at the point of using POP/IMAP with my Google mail account and the built in Nokia email app.
Why not use the regular phone email application with Gmail's imap? Go to Gmail preferences in a PC web browser to configure it.
Or, for that matter with Yahoo, why not use their pop3 delivery, again to the regular phone email application?
Advantages:
- Faster
- Integrated with phone contacts
- All email in one place
- Offline support for use on the tube where "live" email applets don't work
etc.
if
I think the main advantage of the 'live' email for me at least, and lets face it, connection speed and availability is growing and growing - there will be connection in tube trains soon, won't there (?) - is that when you deal with an email or read an email it's clear about what's been done on the one gateway and one copy and no confusion about 'leaving it on the server' or 'marking as unread' to deal with later when you have a larger computer. I think that's a big plus for the way I work.
The other day I was in the pub and needed to look up a contact. I started the Gmail app (which admittedly takes a little while, as we've been saying) then went to contacts and found out the number. These numbers are also live so clicking them dials for you. Now, yes, there was no WLAN so I had to use 3G but it was fast, very cheap or free depending on contract, and didn't need the clunk of goosync's Contact's so-called synchronisation. (Unlike Steve L I think that goosync's workaround for Contacts is pretty unusable - but that's another gripe for another day!)
Tim
Wouldn't the data used be a lot less on the client than using the same services in the browser?
With regard to startup times, the Java runtime itself takes around 4 to 5 seconds to load. On top of which you've got the loading of the app itself. But for most Java programs, that initial runtime load dominates.
Yes, maybe GMail takes longer as time goes on because it's caching email details loaded in the previous session. And as time goes on, it has to parse these in, as well as grab the new email details? Just a guess!
what i can't stand is the way the yahoo app is wasting space on my E61, why isn't it more compact ? with wifi it is quite fast.
concerning gmail, i switched to a S60 natively applications : Profimal handles my more than 7 thousand gmails email via imap without too many problems, is quite fast, and allows a wide range of face font to be used, allowing to read more than 15lines of text on the screen.
that simple, i wish they would make a database client with the same interface (their mp3 system is not too bad, as is the included image viewer)
Nice review and rant. I recently came to pretty much the same conclusion about Yahoo Go 3.0, The app is big and slow and most of what it does works better in the mobile web version.
I think the most significant thing about Go 3.0 are the Widgets. Not because the current ones are all that great but because it offers mobile web developers and bloggers easy entry to the high traffic Yahoo mobile portal. It's quite easy to create a Widget or Snippet showcasing your most recent posts or other content with links back to your own mobile site.
I do have to disagree about the mapping function in the Go 3.0 application. I like it. On my N95-3, Go does use the phone's GPS receiver to locate me and, unlike Google's mobile map application, Go shows the direction I'm moving with a little arrow. It's sensitive enough to point the right direction when I walk across my living room! The turn by turn directions are good too.
Y!G is only for some S60 implementations - it is actually not supported on MOST S60 implementations like the Nokia top of the line E90 communicator any many other phones.
The first reviewer is right too Y!G does recognize the phone accurately and displays a cute message and then refuses to install.