Sure, iPhone has out of the box GMail support and an automated wizard to add your account on Mail.app but what happens when you want something more, something a lot better? Yes, a lot. Just keep on reading.

This trick brings GMail to the next level on the iPhone. Keyword? (Almost) Real time inbox. How? Push notifications. But GMail doesn’t offer out of the box Push notifications unless you are using Google Apps. Well, there’s a tap for that.

Step 1

Delete your GMail account from the Mail.app on the iPhone. Just browse through Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → Accounts (select GMail) → Delete Account.

Step 2

Tap on “Add Account…” and select Microsoft Exchange. Yes, Microsoft — and yes, Exchange! (I assume you are already in iOS 4.x so there’s no problem having more than one Exchange accounts — in case you use already one. Otherwise, you have to upgrade your iOS firmware.)

Step 3

Add the required info:

• In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address.
• Leave the Domain field blank.
• Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
• Enter your Google Account password as the Password.

Tap Next at the top of your screen.

• Choose Cancel if the Unable to Verify Certificate dialog appears.
• When the new Server field appears, enter m.google.com.

Press Next again.

Step 4

Select the Google services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync. I recommend you selecting only Mail and/or Calendar (if you want Google Calendar and iCal.app sync). Clicking on contacts, Google Sync will sync your contacts, but it might delete your iPhone’s Contact Book and just import GMail contacts.

Tap on “Keep on my iPhone” for everything that appears, just to be sure not to delete anything.

Step 5

Navigate to “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” menu and tap on “Fetch new data”. Enable Push and you’re good to go. Also be sure to have IMAP enabled on GMail settings.

Now, every email you’ll receive, it will be almost instantly pushed to your iPhone. You can check this out by yourself. It’s kick-ass.