At the very beginning on this month, Google released a long-awaited Gmail app to the Apple App Store. Many had been wishing for a native Gmail client for their iPhones, due to to the fact that so many Gmail features were lost by running it through the native iOS email app – and running Gmail through a browser doesn’t allow for the all-important push notifications.

So sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, right?

In theory, yes. But the launch of the Gmail iOS app was met with harsh criticism – mainly due to numerous bugs that rendered the app nearly unusable. The all-important push notifications weren’t functional, and some users even reported that the app would crash on startup. Google took a lot of flak for their missteps, and quickly pulled the app from the App Store.

Now, Google has announced that they have reintroduced the Gmail app to the App Store:

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We’ve fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store.

Part of the complaints when the app originally launched dealt with its lack of features. Google says that they have heard those complaints, and are working to bring those features to users in the near future.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We’re just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more.

If you want to give the Gmail for iOS app another go, it’s now available for iOS 4 and above. If you have the old, buggy version installed you’ll have to uninstall it before you can access the new, hopefully unbuggy version.

What do you think about the Gmail iOS app? Let us know in the comments.