While GMail can be accessed via any web-enabled phone (at http://m.gmail.com/), there’s a new Java-based GMail applet that works much more slickly than the native web application. And it’s supported on the Treo 650.
While some folks seem to have no trouble installing it, I couldn’t make it work until I followed these instructions from Paul S. on the GMail boards.
- Remove flash card to force installs to built-in flash storage
- Go to palm.com site and download the IBM Websphere Java VM
- Install the Java VM according to Palm’s instructions (using Palm Desktop)
- once you install the JVM, load “IBM java” from applications, click install, enter “http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Palm-Treo_650.jad” in the URL field. …
- That operation should end with “installation successful”.
- Go to the application launcher and you should see the gmail app there. Run it.
The Java VM is available here.
The trick was that the Treo won’t recognize Java packages itself when downloaded (as the Google pages will try to do when you go to www.gmail.com/app). Instead, the app has to be installed from within the Java VM, which requires the full URL, which Paul mercifully managed to clean.
This is on a Treo 650 from AT&T Wireless (now Cingular). I’d removed the Java engine a while back, I believe, for the sake of space. YMMV.