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Google Hopes To One Day Replace Gmail With Inbox
An anonymous reader writes Three Inbox by Gmail engineers today answered questions as part of a Reddit AMA session. Most of the answers were tidbits we've heard of before, but one stood out to us: Google plans to eventually replace Gmail with Inbox. In response to the question "Do you think Inbox will replace Gmail on the long road?," lead designer Jason Cornwell gave the following answer: "In the short term, no. In the very long term, we hope so. Inbox is something new — that's why we're launching it as a separate product. We care deeply about Gmail and Gmail users, but in the long run as we add more features to Inbox and respond to user feedback we hope that everyone will want to use Inbox instead of Gmail. Ultimately, our users will decide." The followup question asks how Google believed one email product possibly target both casual (Gmail) and power (Inbox) users, to which Cornwell replied: "They are not aimed at fundamentally different audiences. Both Gmail and Inbox are designed to scale from low volume to high volume users."
Looks like that quote got cut off. Should have been, "Ultimately, our users will decide to use Inbox when we discontinue gmail."
Well, people have been switching in droves since it was introduced. Only 99.95 percent of users are still using gmail, the rest have switched to Inbox. Once it gets down to 95% or so, we'll feel comfortable with removing the gmail interface because barely anybody would be using it.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Dear Google,
Hi. My name is grasshoppa. You may know me from such famous threads as "Windows 8 Sucks" and "Windows 8 User Interface, wtf?". You may remember that I, along with a multitude of others, warned MS about making such a radical change to the desktop. No, wait, that's not quite right; we warned against FORCING such a radical change to the desktop. But we were assured by various astroturfers that windows 8 was the bees knees, the mutts nuts and various other wonderous bits of animals ( thank you, Sir Terry Pratchett, for that phrase ). We were called all sorts of various names for our opinions. Yet many of us stuck to our guns; we knew that a mobile interface force fed to desktop users was a recipe for failure.
Please. Listen to us now. This is a remarkable bad idea. This is the kind of idea your competitors DREAM of you implementing. It's really the only way they can get a foot hold into your market. And make no mistake; a foot hold will be all they need, because once you start down this road ( and, inevitably back track a week later due to overwhelming user criticism ), you have lost your momentum. You have lost the confidence necessary to stay that one step ahead of them. And they will then proceed to eat your lunch.
Who am I? No one really. Just some poor schmuck that will have to work with YOUR end users when you force feed them a UI change. And I'm already resentful for it.
So please. For the love of all you hold dear, PLEASE DO NOT FORCE A NEW INTERFACE on people.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Good at asking??? They DON'T ask. They don't listen. Everything they make appears to be designed by 12 year olds for other 12 year olds. read: they're constantly changing shit for no reason other than to change it.
Inbox works with your Gmail address (along with whatever other addresses you've added on using imap or pop). It is basically a different way of consuming the same content (ie the email that ends up in your standard Gmail Inbox) and tries to automatically sort the email into categories such as Misc., Forums, Purchases, Bills etc while not assigning a different label to them. Inbox adds the ability to snooze emails (so you get a notification to do something about them at a later time) along with the ability to create sticky emails which show up in a separate folder (for a lack of a better term) that is easily accessible. I haven't had a chance to play with it properly as I only finally got the invite a couple hours ago but I kinda like the premise and if the categorizing algorithms are any good, it might actually be fairly useful (obviously that's my take on it, other people have their own preferences/needs).
You're not Google's customer.
You're Google's product.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm sure they ask. They ask each other.
Guy with piercings: Hey, look, I made it so when you, like, compose a new email this itty bitty box pops up!
Girl with shaved head: Neato! But it's, like, taking up the whole page. That's so last decade.
[clickety-clicketty-click]
Person of transient gender with dreadlocks: Yay, now you can only see three words at a time. Minimalismo!
GWSH: Better hide those scrollbars. They're so Windows XP! [1]
POTGWD: But we'll need some way to scroll, with the window being so petite.
GWSH: If you, like, move the mouse to the right quickly, that could mean "up" or something.
GWP: Inside the box, or anywhere on the screen?
GWSH & POTGWD: Anywhere on the screen, of course!
All: Awesome!
Chief UX Creative: That's what I like to hear. Let's all hop on our fixies, the whoppachoccacacamochos are on me!
All: Totally awesome!
[1] This is the earliest version any of them have heard of, let alone used.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yeah, I'll also be switching to a new service if they force me into some app that looks more like twitter than conventional email. Consider this garbage (from the Wikipedia entry):
Google scans the email account for important and similar information. It then presents what it considers the most important parts of the email first and groups similar emails as "Bundles" that are named by type (e.g., "Travel" or "Updates"). It also converts physical addresses into Google Maps links and airline confirmation numbers into a flight status update.[2] Users can make custom Bundles as they would make Gmail filters, and can specify the time of day to show the Bundle.
I don't want bundles. I don't want them timed. I don't want Google to decide what is and isn't the "most important parts". I just want to see my email in the same format it was created.