Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

Gmail not working for some iDevice users, Google investigating fix

Last updated

In response to reports from iDevice owners complaining of problems connecting to Google's Gmail service, the company issued a statement on Friday notifying users the issue is under investigation and a fix is in the works.

According to an email sent to All Things D, Google said it is aware of the Gmail issues and is working on rolling out a fix, noting that affected users can follow a set of workarounds in the meantime.

A number of Apple iOS device users took to Google's product forums after receiving an error message reading “mail service imap.gmail.com is not responding." It is not clear what is causing the problem, but some have narrowed it down to an issue with either Google's servers or Apple's Mail iOS app.


Source: Google

Google notes that possible workarounds include installing the standalone Gmail iOS app or visiting the web client through Safari.



14 Comments

mstone 19 Years · 11503 comments

I have no issues I'm on 5.1.1

 

Just a guess but I would say there is a good chance Google is migrating accounts to  new datacenter or load balanced application and service is a little choppy during the transition.

evoken 18 Years · 53 comments

I have no issues either, I got Sparrow on my iPhone and have been receiving my emails fine and when I open Mail in the iPhone it also downloads the messages without problem. I am running 5.1.1 as well. It is likely just a little bump that affected some users, should be working fine for everyone soon.

radjin 15 Years · 165 comments

Why would anyone use GMail over the free and very secure iCloud mail on an iOS device? I guess gmail is great as your junk mail, account to keep the spam away from your other account, but everything you send or receive through gmail is culled to connect you with advertising.

hill60 17 Years · 6976 comments

I set it up as exchange using m.google.com as the server, the usual spam keeps flowing in.

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radjin 

Why would anyone use GMail over the free and very secure iCloud mail on an iOS device? I guess gmail is great as your junk mail, account to keep the spam away from your other account, but everything you send or receive through gmail is culled to connect you with advertising.

 

 

It's my junk account used for registering for stuff, surveys etc.

 

I use different accounts for different things, this allows for some level of protection of "private" email addresses, which you don't use for anything else.

 

Microsoft has a new service called outlook.com, it looks like competition has pushed them to produce a more than adequate Gmail replacement.

cvaldes1831 16 Years · 1832 comments

[quote name="Radjin" url="/t/151877/gmail-not-working-for-some-idevice-users-google-investigating-fix#post_2166439"]Why would anyone use GMail over the free and very secure iCloud mail on an iOS device? I guess gmail is great as your junk mail, account to keep the spam away from your other account, but everything you send or receive through gmail is culled to connect you with advertising.[/quote] First of all, if you connect via IMAP with a dedicated/standalone mail client, you will not see ads. This isn't just for Gmail, but for Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, etc. Gmail has been far more reliable than various iterations of Apple's mail service (Mac.com, MobileMe, iCloud). For that matter, Yahoo and AOL mail are also more reliable than Apple's services. Gmail's spam filter is pretty good too. Some people like the deep integration between Google's various services and Gmail is the keystone. I don't use my Gmail account anymore but I can't delete the account since I rely on Google Voice. I prefer using Hotmail for my junk mail account.