Google gives up on native Gmail for BlackBerry app

Last week’s certainly been a bumpy ride for Google’s Gmail team as they suffered a public relations blow over the release and subsequent pulling of a sub-par native Gmail app for Apple’s iPhone. Yesterday, Google wrote on the Apps blog it would cease development of the native Gmail app for the BlackBerry OS and focus its efforts on the mobile version:

We will end support for the Gmail App for Blackberry (installed native app). Over this past year, we’ve focused efforts on building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser and will continue investing in this area.

The company will stop supporting and developing the native Gmail for BlackBerry app beginning November 22, 2011. A support note sheds more light and advises BlackBerry owners on how to prepare for the switch.

The search giant also released a new version of the Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange tool that contains new command line options, detailed migration reports, pre-migration diagnostics and the ability to choose the specific type of IMAP server from which you are migrating data, which the company says “improves performance”.