For the avoidance of doubt - I'm not going to do this, I'll be waiting for Apple's development kit to be distributed so that we can get official 3rd party software on the iPhone.

I will do this on my iPod Touch though...

Google mail has now had the IMAP protocol added to its settings - so on your iPod Touch you can now add Google mail using IMAP through using the "Other" button in the Settings panel for Mail.

Follow the "help" instructions in your gmail account, after you have activated IMAP

It works!

After getting the Mail application for iPod Touch working and attaching to my iMap servers I also opened my GMail account - but was not too happy as it does not support IMap, that it until I found this on the Google webiste :

What's new on Gmail?

Just launched!

Free IMAP

Sync your inbox across devices instantly and automatically. Whether you read or write your email on your phone or on your desktop, changes you make to Gmail will be seen from anywhere you access your inbox. Don't fret if you don't see "IMAP Access" yet under the Settings menu. We're rolling it out to everyone over the next few days.

so in other words - this will be sorted very soon!

I'm happy!

Now that version 2.1 of the iPhone/iPod touch has been released for the iPod Touch (so I expect it to be available for the iPhone very soon (?)) - at the very least there is a list of what has changed :

I have to admit that I have used the iJailBreak utility to update my iPod Touch, and add the rest of the iPhone software to this now even more attractive device. So now I have email and Google maps available!