Google pulling BlackBerry Gmail app

As if BlackBerry owners don't have enough on their plates, Google has announced it's yanking its Gmail app from BlackBerry App World as of 22 November, so snap it up now if you want it.

Google will continue to support the app, so it'll still work if you already have it, but don't expect any updates anytime soon.

Google made the announcement on its support pages, reports Recombu. Instead, BlackBerry owners will have to make do with Gmail in the browser. "Beginning 22 November 2011, we will end support for the Gmail App for BlackBerry (installed native app)," reads the blog post. "Over this past year, we've focussed efforts on building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser and will continue investing in this area."

This comes a week after Google released its Gmail iOS app for Apple devices, then pulled it an hour later due to a notifications bug. The app didn't appear in the Notifications submenu in iOS5, nor did it give notifications when you accessed it from the global iPhone settings menu. It also didn't support more than one Gmail account.

Gmail for desktops, however, recently underwent a spangly redesign. Well, we say spangly -- the look is actually a lot more sparse now.

BlackBerry owners, meanwhile, had to deal with a three day outage of BBM last month. Then on top of that came news the PlayBook's 2.0 software update is delayed, and that it won't run BBM when it does finally arrive. At least they have the BlackBerry Colt -- the first handset to run the BBX OS -- to look forward to as some consolation.

Is this further sign of a lack of faith in BlackBerry? Or is Google just focussing on its browser version? Answers below or on our Facebook page.