How can i disable iphone 4s apple email, and substitute gmail app, which allows for replies, compose, send

Question

iphone4s built-in email is frustrating because it does not allow for replies to incoming mail; deletions and archiving, composing new mail, et al., as gmail does.. is it possible to disable or eliminate iphone email app and sub for gmail app, which i use regulary, just as i do on my laptop?
if not, what alternative solutions exist?
thanks very much.,

Answer 1

In the native iOS app, if you set the default behavior to send a deleted message to Trash, you can still Archive it by moving it to "All Mail" in the same way you can move a message to any other folder.
As for the GMail app, I don't see a need for it but I suppose it depends on what you want.  You can have multiple GMail accounts set up on your device with the iOS Mail app, but if you want a quick way to switch between accounts you can use the GMail app for a particular account and iOS Mail for another.  Beyond that I don't see any advantage to the GMail app, other than maybe a priority Inbox.  The iOS Mail app can do push notifications for GMail if you set it up as an Exchange account (see below), so they're equivalent in that regard.
Since you're a GMail user, you might want to delete your GMail account in iOS settings and re-create it as an Exchange account.  That way you get push notifications, and your GMail contacts automatically remain synced between GMail and your device (over the air, no need to re-sync to iTunes).  To do this, read the article below:
http://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?l=en&topic=14252&answer=138740
One caveat though:  When you set GMail up as an Exchange account, the default behavior of deleting a message is Archive (even though the button will say Delete).  To change this default, the only way is to use your iPhone's Safari to navigate to m.google.com/sync after you set up your Exchange account on your iPhone.  There you can change the behavior to actually delete a message when you tap Delete. Other than that little task (a one-time thing) you'll be set.