I've found the Gmail changes almost completely useless, since I read email almost exclusively on my phone (though I often reread or respond to it on my laptop) and the changes don't extend to the Android app.

My android app on a Motorola Droid has the changes as well, and automatically switched over when I switched my browser setup. I would investigate your settings.

That it also works on my phone is a large part of what makes it so useful for me- of the ~30 emails I get a day, only the ~2 actually important ones ping me on my phone, and the rest wait patiently until I want to see them.