Google did many things with Gmail in conventional browsers five years ago. The company is expecting to do it again with a new mobile version of its Web based email service.

Google offers Gmail applications that run natively on BlackBerry and Android mobile phones. While this is off and running, Google maintains high hopes for a Web based version as well with this then going to the mobile phone. Leader of the efforts with Google, Vic Gundotra, showed off the Web application during the Web 2.0 Expo. Gundotra said that building a Web interface means Google can reach more phones more easily, “imagine if you could build apps that ran across all these phones.”

The software relies on features from HTML 5. This technology is still under development. More specifically, the prototype for the application used offline data access so the application could read e-mail even while there was no Internet connection. “When we make it broadly available, people are going to see this as the first HTML 5 mobile application,” Guntodra explained. Options of the app included floating toolbar that stayed perched at the top of the inbox, offering constant access to delete and archive buttons and a menu of further options. No specific date was mentioned about when the options would be available.

[via CNET WebWare]