iPad Gets HTML5 Mail via Yahoo

Yahoo walked into the footsteps of Google, and is releasing an HTML5 version of its Mail service for iPad users. The new Yahoo Mail for iPad is now available to all users of the service through the built-in Safari browser. You can try it for yourself from an iPad here.

Yahoo Mail’s HTML5 version takes advantage of HTML5 local caching capabilities, so you can access and search messages when you are not connected to the Internet.

The iPad-optimized version of Yahoo Mail lets you search through your messages, or images and files attached to e-mails you received. You can also view photo attachments straight from the left-side column in a lightbox.

Similar to Google

Google introduced its HTML5-enabled iPad version of Gmail in April, featuring a list of your e-mails on the left, and a message viewer on the right, regardless of whether the iPad is held in portrait or landscape mode.

Yahoo’s iPad Mail service doesn’t depart from Google’s model, which in fact was inspired by the landscape view of the Apple Mail app bundled in iOS. What’s different with Yahoo Mail’s iPad version is that it lets you swap from dual column view to a single column view via a switcher at the top. (Click on the image for a closer look.)

Upon light testing, Yahoo Mail for iPad feels fast and zippy. I also found a nifty setting under the options tab (in the main account view), which lets you hide message previews (snippets), so you can fit more e-mail onto the list on the left. You can also disable confirmation pop-ups for when you delete or mark an email as spam.

The e-mail composing interface on Yahoo Mail for iPad still needs a bit of work, as the text entry form spans from one side to another of the display, making it difficult to follow. Google addressed this issue on Gmail for iPad just short while back.

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