No Gmail in Android SDK

I've been frustrated in recent days by the Android SDK not including the gmail app. The email app included with the SDK works differently to the gmail app which is what all the users will be using.

I'm trying to include a new feature in Bites where users can share recipes via email attachments. The sending part is working. The receiving part is not, and finding out why is not so easy as the gmail application is not available to debug with on the emulator.

The only option available to me so far is debugging on a physical device, which reduces me to old school debugging using the Log.d function and logcat in DDMS. This is quite tedious when compared to the step through debugging possible when using the emulator.

Google, if you are listening can we please have gmail in the SDK. I'm not bothered if it is a closed source binary, I just want to test with it.

Stay tuned for my post on how to open gmail attachments with your app (as soon as I work out how to do it).