Part of Android’s appeal, at least to me, is its integration with Google services. As I wrote on Tuesday, this includes not only synced services like Gmail and GChat, but also web-apps like Google Reader and Google Docs. They might not have their own dedicated applications, but the mobile sites are well-designed and make for easy browsing and reading. But my web habits certainly extend beyond Google. I’m sure many faithful Gmail users also use other services for webmail. Yahoo! Mail is one of the most popular email services, and since it predates Gmail I’m sure many faithful Gmail users also have Yahoo! Mail accounts. If you do, you’re in luck. Yahoo has released a Mail app for Android.
The app contains a number of attractive features, including email caching. This works perfect for the underground or in-air traveler who wants to read mail while on the go. It’s definitely one of those batch processes I like to reserve for time when I’m not sitting in front of my computer, if possible. It also contains a search function which, again, can be used even when you’re out of network range.
Yahoo! also brags a bit about its use of HTML5, which it claims enables the app to run even faster. It’s not slow, I’ll give it that, but I wouldn’t exactly call it fast. I noticed a little lag when running it, but nothing serious. A few Market commenters noted that it crashed a few times for them and that it ran particularly slow. To the latter claim I’m not sure what we can make of it because different people have different standards for speed. It does sometimes take a bit for mailboxes to load, I will say. To the former, I’ve browsed through the app for a while and haven’t experienced a crash yet. But just watch, it’ll go just after I publish this.
The app does contain plenty of email usage features that should probably be included in all external mail apps. The main screen contains all of your folders, both smart folders and user-created ones. You can also add a folder, empty the trash, or empty spam under the More tab. It appears, though, that once I’ve clicked the More tab, that menu appears every time I return to the main Mail screen after viewing my Inbox.
In terms of composing, the interface is intuitive enough. Thankfully, you can add recipients not only from your Yahoo contacts, but also from your Android contacts. There are rich text options, mostly the basics like font face and color, bold, italics, and underline. Uploading files is pretty easy, and you can even take a picture right from your camera and attach it.
It’s not perfect, but it will do. You can grab the Yahoo! Mail client — as well as Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Search — from the Market. The QR codes are below.
Update: No sooner after I publish this do I get a new email to my Yahoo! Mail account. It made my phone vibrate, the trackball glow, and an annoying tone to sound. If you don’t like this, I suggest going into Options and unchecking the Notifications box. Unfortunately, this seems like an all-or-nothing proposition. Thankfully, the app closes when you back out of it, so you can use it just to check your mail, rather than receive it in real time.
