I recently migrated several domains I manage for family and friends to the “free” version of Google Apps.

I setup the Gmail app on their Android phones for them and email arrives promptly and spam is pretty much eradicated. Happy days.

However, the Gmail app for Android only supports a conversation view of emails. My wife and I hate that and have actually missed emails because new emails get burried in an earlier email conversation way down your inbox. Frustratingly changing the preferences on the Gmail website to disable the conversation view does not propagate to the Gmail app.

The best solution to this that I have found is to to not use the Gmail app and install K-9 Mail instead connected to Google App accounts via IMAP and SMTP. K-9 Mail (only?) supports a traditional list view of your emails and unlike the built in Email app for Android K9-Mail supports push notifications so you get near instantaneous notification of new email.

If you want to support the K-9 Mail developer then consider purchasing Kaiten Mail which is an enhanced version of K-9 Mail and is particularly good on Android tablets.