You can still use GMail with any domain: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...

This method is actually far more convenient than setting up Google Apps. You can both send and receive mail at the other domain, and you get a unified inbox (which Google Apps never provided).

No, that method requires that the other domain have its own mail server to accept and store the mail until gmail comes and fetches it with POP. Who will host that other server?

Google Apps for domains lets you point your domain's MX record directly at Google, and Google accepts the mail for you.

The important part of Google Apps is the GMail interface, not the SMTP service. SMTP hosting is easy to come by; most hosting services include it with their web hosting packages.

Yet this doesn't appear to be any sort of mail-hosting thing, so you'd still have to sort out mail with an entirely different provider to receive e-mails on your domain. This is pretty awful.

You're going to need a hosting provider to host your website anyway; mail service is probably included. How is that awful?

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

That's not correct at all. You don't need website hosting to have a domain, and you could use free google apps on any domain you own, without paying for a host.

I don't really want to have to set up Postfix on my Linode.

Increases complexity....

I didn't know about this, but it's all I wanted google apps for anyway.

I can attest it takes about 5 minutes to setup if you already have web space somewhere and know how to access its email server details.

Maybe this will drive alternatives that are cheaper than $50 per user per year.

Any cheaper than $50 per user per year and you're in the free range. Just to keep this in perspective, $50 a year is a pretty good value when you think about what you're getting in Google Apps.

Plenty of services will let you forward your mail to a normal GMail account. Without an SMTP server, your GMail account will still be visible to your recipients, but it's not so bad.

Yes I'm sure people will appreciate getting email back from <stupid_username_because_they_were_all_taken_234234>@gmail.com

During my time at Fermilab working on an LHC sensor team, I forwarded my Fermilab email to my personal gmail account because their mail servers were so antiquated (100MB quota, no web interface, etc). Filters, multiple Inbox labs, and all my emails I responded to looked like they came from my Fermilab email address.

You can send as any email address you have access to. Some email clients show the GMail address as well when the email is sent through GMail's SMTP servers. It's suboptimal, but there are plenty of SMTP services you could use if you want to get around that.

I setup my email that way years ago and abandoned it. At that time, it caused a lot of my outgoing emails to get flagged as spam because of the mismatch of various mail headers between the Gmail domains with the various to/from/reply-to domains. Don't know if it would trip fewer spam filters now.

You can also configure it so that Gmail uses the other email address SMTP servers. However, I'm not quite sure whether they still include the originating Gmail address in the email headers.

If it uses the other addresses's SMTP server, it displays like a normal email would.

Using gmail you can send mail using a different from: address.

The fact you're using gmail will still be obvious to anyone looking at headers, but that's not really a problem.

And? You want this to be free? It clearly costs money.

How so? It's essentially the same service as gmail, only with a different domain. The incremental cost to them is zero, and they make the same revenue as they do from a gmail user.

A gmail user advertises gmail every time they send a mail. Your own domain does not. Its a mass market product. Having your own domain is not.

Google's cost != Value to You.

I was responding specifically to the 'It clearly costs money' statement. It definitely costs them $0 more than gmail.

Opportunity cost.

I see ads on my free google apps account...

Expect them to start including "Upgrade now to a paid Google Apps account!" ;-)

I don't even see ads when reading email for my basic gmail account on my phone, so IME there's zero difference between the two except that one is tightly integrated with my domain name and the other has a terribly ugly username @gmail.com ...

Wait for it...

This could be a good thing. If you approach your manager wanting to switch from dedicated to cloud email service, and you tell him it's for free, he's going to be suspicious. If there's a cost involved - no matter how small - it gives the product a degree liability for support.

You could always pay for Google Apps if you wanted to, as I suspect most >5 person business do.