Goodbye pokey Inbox refresh: Gmail for iOS gains background updates

Google(s goog) announced a Gmail for iOS update on Wednesday that should virtually eliminate manually refreshing your Inbox on an iPhone(s aapl), iPad or iPod touch. The software now supports background refreshing so messages are pre-fetched and synchronized. Users will have to enable the background refresh function after updating the app, which can be found in the iTunes App Store. Apple notes that enabling background refresh for an application can impact battery life, so you’ll need to consider if the constant mail syncing is worth it compared to the manual or scheduled refreshing of your Inbox in Gmail for iOS.