iOS 7.0.3 released

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by 49Kat

Well, the gmail app added another annoying feature which I just saw today. I found a spam ad disguised as an e-mail in the Promotions tab. You have to tap it to delete it, which means, you have to look at it. I guess this is Google's way of generating ad revenue via the Apple app, but I still don't like to see it.

I don't use the gmail app in my iPad mini or iPhone, just the iPad2. I have mail organized in folders in my gmail account, and if I move them in a gmail app, that doesn't sync over to the native Apple e-mail in the other 2 devices. The whole e-mail situation with my mobile devices is something I'm not entirely satisfied with yet but I am not sure what to do about it at this point. I also looked for apps at the app store and I'm not seeing anything of interest there.

Wow, you're right, i hadn't noticed that you can't delete a message without displaying it in the gmail app. Bad design.

Meanwhile, on my iPad mini the mail app can access gmail, but not on the iPad 3.

Regarding alternatives, many people seem to love mailbox.com. Personally I'm not going to create yet another cloud account and let a third party have access to my emails. Google is enough. But if you have a strong need to organize your mails and sync across devices, it may be a solution. I haven't tested it for the reason stated above.

[Faterson]

It's Mailbox all the way here.

By the way, the Gmail app does allow you to perform actions on a message without opening it, by swiping it in the message list. But, the Gmail app is very lame compared to Mailbox, and it's lamer on iOS than on Android (which is curious, because it's usually the other way around with apps -- but not so curious if you consider that Google is the maker of both Gmail and Android).

Naturally -- as usual -- the lamest of all, and therefore unusable for me, is Apple's "Mail" app on both Mac OS and especially iOS, so I don't touch it if I don't have to. The trouble is, iOS being despotic and insisting on treating it as the default email app for sending email when the mail function is called from within other apps, etc. No problems with that under iOS 7.0.3 for any of my 4 Gmail accounts.

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Wow, you're right, i hadn't noticed that you can't delete a message without displaying it in the gmail app. Bad design.

Meanwhile, on my iPad mini the mail app can access gmail, but not on the iPad 3.

Regarding alternatives, many people seem to love mailbox.com. Personally I'm not going to create yet another cloud account and let a third party have access to my emails. Google is enough. But if you have a strong need to organize your mails and sync across devices, it may be a solution. I haven't tested it for the reason stated above.

I went with Google for a couple of years because of the IMAP ability, but Google has become too unethical and slimy IMHO. I wouldn't trust Google with anything anymore. I finally decided to pay my website provider a little more money and upgraded my email service to IMAP. It is certainly not free like Gmail, but it is way more secure and there is no fox in the hen house like there was in Gmail.

BTW, I bought a Nexus 7.2 this past week to use with my Canon EOS 60D DSLR. It has USB host capability whereas the Kindle Fires and iPad/iPhone do not. It runs Android 4.3. I haven't installed very many apps as I will be using the iPad3 for my main tablet.

Last night (Saturday) we had some severe thunderstorms come through, so I tried to use my Nexus 7.2 with a few weather and radar apps. None of the apps worked well at all. Slow to update from the internet, glitchy, lackluster performance. Meanwhile the iPad3 and iPhone5 were humming along without issues and the same weather/radar apps worked wonderfully. Thankfully the Nexus 7.2 is good at reading and controlling my dSLR camera. But even with Android 4.3, the Nexus 7.2 is a disappointment as far as most of the apps I run. Or perhaps I should say Android 4.3 is a disappointment.

I volunteer as storm spotter (not a chaser) for the Fort Worth office of the NWS. As such I need reliable equipment such as amateur band (ham) radios, computers, tablets, phone, car, etc. Everything performed wonderfully except the Android Nexus. Quite frankly, it let me down big time.

There is no time to mess with glitchy equipment when out in severe thunderstorms and trying to monitor radio communications and radar data. It can be dangerous. So I need highly reliable equipment and software. I found out last night that Android and the Nexus 7.2 are not reliable enough whereas iOS is. Thankfully I had my iOS devices with me. iOS7 might not look like we would want it too, but it does work and it works quite well and dependably.

[Faterson]

So does Android 4.3, and it doesn't look hideous like iOS 7. To make conclusions about entire operating systems based upon one stormy night and a weather app, come on. I prefer to check the weather using my Android tablet, thanks to the very nice weather widgets offered there. Meanwhile, iOS 7 is not just ugly to look at, but also in the Stone Age in terms of functionality, in that no widgets are allowed, and you'd need to actually launch an app just to check the weather...

Originally Posted by Faterson

So does Android 4.3, and it doesn't look hideous like iOS 7. To make conclusions about entire operating systems based upon one stormy night and a weather app, come on. I prefer to check the weather using my Android tablet, thanks to the very nice weather widgets offered there. Meanwhile, iOS 7 is not just ugly to look at, but also in the Stone Age in terms of functionality, in that no widgets are allowed, and you'd need to actually launch an app just to check the weather...

If you hate iOS so much why not sell your iOS devices and and stop complaining about them ad nauseam here in the Apple Devices forum. I'm sure you can find a home over in the Android Devices forum. I might be in the minority, but I don't find iOS7 to be hideous. It might not look as nice as iOS6, but it works better than Android ever will.

[Faterson]

I don't complain about my devices as hardware. I criticise iOS because it's a dumb, outdated OS -- and starting from iOS 7, it's also ugly. I already find Android 4.3 better than iOS today -- no need to wait for the future. The main thing that makes me prefer iOS devices over Android devices for now, are the superior 3rd-party apps on iOS as opposed to Android.

[HYPE]

Originally Posted by 49Kat

Wow, that would be troubling to see something like that, indeed. I googled "google software update.app take control of mac" and this is one link that came up:

http://superuser.com/questions/65701...-computer-what

I only own mobile Apple products, so I can't really speak to anything concerning Mac's specifically. My opinion, though...that any program or app would require 'control' of a computer in order to check for or install updates is disturbing, to say the least.

Nothing disturbing, really. Apple simply improved security with OSX Mavericks. Applications and scripts need your explicit authorization more often before performing system tasks. For apps such as Google Chrome, which auto-updates silently, it's no big deal that it would ask for your authorization before being able to perform updates by itself.

[Faterson]

Beware!

Look at an example of the ordeal I'm currently going through with iOS since having upgraded to iOS 7.0.3. It's the single most debilitating flaw I have encountered in iOS ever since having started using iDevices years ago.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by 49Kat

Well, the gmail app added another annoying feature which I just saw today. I found a spam ad disguised as an e-mail in the Promotions tab.

Isn't that the point of the Promotions tab? You would have received the spam email anyway, but the new gmail feature is intended to at least move them to a compartment where you can deal with them at leisure.

I think you can disable tabs that you don't like.

Graham

[Faterson]

Graham, if spam filters are performing correctly, spam would have landed in the "Spam" folder, not in Inbox/Promotions. Well, it happens sometimes; no one is perfect.

As you suggested, the default "Promotions" and "Social" tabs can be disabled via Gmail webmail interface.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Graham, if spam filters are performing correctly, spam would have landed in the "Spam" folder, not in Inbox/Promotions.

Ah, I see the point being made now. Sorry.

Graham

[FlorenceArt]

By the way, Mail is now working again with my gmail account. All I had to do was delete the account and recreate it. Why didn't I think of that before?

Anyway, it's good news because the third party mail apps I tried were all rather bad.

[Faterson]

Mailbox is absolutely outstanding. Every bit as outstanding as the default Mail is lame. Mailbox has now become my primary email program -- it's outshining every email software available on traditional computers, as well as webmail solutions such as Gmail.

PS: Mailbox isn't perfect... its editor is poor. But, its email management capabilities are a revelation.

[FlorenceArt]

I'm sure Mailbox is great, but I am not giving over my e-mails to yet another cloud service. Plus, I don't need to sort or organize my e-mails, I like them just the way they appear on Mail, sorted chronologically. I don't get a lot of mails and it's the most comfortable way for me. I disable thread view because I find it confusing.