Once-buggy Gmail app for iOS returns to the App Store

After what can only be described as a poor start for Google’s much-anticipated Gmail app for Apple’s iOS platform, the software has returned.

The app, which was released earlier this month and then yanked almost immediately, had a bug that Google said broke notifications. It also served up an error message the first time users fired it up.

“We’ve fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store,” wrote Matthew Izatt, Gmail’s product manager in a post this morning.

Izatt added that the app has also improved its image handling in HTML messages so that images are sized to fit the screen.

Google says that users who picked up the original app need to uninstall or log out of it before installing the newer software.

The app is noteworthy in that Google has avoided offering an Gmail client for iOS since the introduction of the App Store. Users of theiPhone,iPod, andiPad can, of course, use Apple’s own e-mail client to access their e-mail, however that built-in client is missing many Gmail-specific features.

Izatt said that users have request support for multiple accounts, mobile signatures, and improved notification messages, and that the company is “just getting started” with the e-mailing software.