Gmail on IMAP? Or Mobile Web?
A lot of fuss is being made over IMAP support in Gmail. IMAP is a big improvement over POP, because it basically remembers the state of messages between computers (and the iPhone). So you can read your email sometimes over the iPhone, sometimes over your computer, and never have to worry about which email you read or replied to over each — they are in sync all the time.
But I have to say that using Gmail with IMAP is still a drag. It doesn’t group emails in threads, and it is too easy to throw an email away, as opposed to the preferred Gmail action of archiving email.
On the other hand, one of the mobile versions of Gmail is fast and easy to use, and looks brilliant over the iPhone. If you disagree, it may be because you are using the very stripped-down mobile versions of Gmail that is meant for lesser phones. I’m not exactly sure how you insure you are viewing the iPhone version of Gmail — the same URL will take you to a lesser version in your Mac browser. I assume they are now sniffing your device type and showing you the good one. You should see Archive, Delete and Search buttons (not links, buttons) at the bottom of the page.