Apple Mail vs Gmail

Two apps, two giant software companies.  Which is better for the traveler?  Which do I use?  This may be an app war so old that you dismiss it, but while the internet is alive with argument about the best Twitter client, the mail client is still important.

Email? What's that?
In the old days, it was all email all the time.  RIM even figured it out and turned the Blackberry pager into an email device.  Little has changed. (gratuitous swipe at RIM), except that people take email for granted.  Most working people still handle emails that number in the hundreds every day, and those on the road still rely on it to transact real business.  So it is important.

Evolution of Email is over?
So it seems.  Webmail made it ubiquitous, and the stats from Hitwise show the history that has entrenched itself in our use patterns:
As of March, 2011, the most popular email websites (based on US Internet usage and in descending order of popularity) were: Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and AOL Mail (see current rankings.)

So it seems the email app is not very dynamic- what we signed up with is what we still use (AOL anyone?) The client, the thing you use to look at and write email, that has proliferated, then seems to have slowed to a crawl.  Wikipedia has as good a table showing email clients as there is out there.  Does anyone remember the miracle that was Compuserve in the Eighties?

Email Clients
Nothing is more boring than an new email client, if there is such a thing.  Outlook or Entourage and Apple Mail dominate.  So how do I do mail?  I was a devoted Outlook user- so much power, that like many Microsoft apps one had to go to a class to use it, and it spawned a market for books, seminars and CDs.  When I converted to Apple, I gave Mail a try, and it did what I wanted, email.

ExecHobo Style
My primary mail is Gmail.  I also have several other accounts, and Mail integrates them, supposedly, but outside of the iPhone, I have little happy experience using Mail with multiple accounts.  So that Mail advantage over Gmail?  Not so much.  So really, the iPhone is my primary email tool.  It works, but what about laptop working?

I have been getting more and more happy with Google apps, and the Gmail app online is one of my most used tools on my laptop.  The spam filtering is accurate, aggressive and incomparable.  That feature alone makes Gmail worthwhile. The question is, why do I use Gmail over Mail?  Simple- tags. But work offline on mails?  Gotta use Mail,  or look into Sparrow, which I am doing.

I organize my mails, and the choice is folders (Mail) or tags (Gmail).  Tags lets me keep everything in my inbox so searching is efficacious, but also organize and cross reference mails.  For example, with client name + project + travel.  This really makes it easy to find mails when I need to get a quick look at what are my next hotel reservation details.

If only Google had any design people working on the interface, or made it work offline.  Sparrow calling...