Tag Archives: email

Gmail takes a bold step forward with new look [Update: official iOS app released]

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Today Google flipped the switch and transformed Gmail with a new look. It was previewed back in July and now it’s ready for primetime. The navigation panel on the left is more customizable;  you can resize the labels and chat areas depending on which section you access most often. Search has been upgraded, too. The search box up top now features a drop box with helpful options that should make finding exactly what you’re looking for easier and faster. You can also create filters from search queries. Emails have been aesthetically transformed to look like streamlined conversations. Profiles pictures for your contacts show up inside emails and unneccesary text has been stripped out of view making reading a conversation a better experience. In addition, Google has figured out a way to make the Gmail window fit your screen perfectly; the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. In the settings menu, you can play around with display density and manually select “comfortable,” “cozy,” and “compact” views. Last, the Gmail team has added high resolution themes to the mix. They say most of the popular themes have been upgraded to HD, so the switch on your end should happen automatically. The new look has rolled out to everyone today; to enable it simply click the “Switch to the new look” link located at the bottom right in Gmail. There’s a brief video highlighting these changes after the break.

Update (11/3): Today Google finally released an official Gmail app for iOS devices. Google says they’ve “combined your favorite features from the Gmail mobile web app and iOS into one app so you can be more productive on the go.” The Gmail app promises to bring speed, efficiency, and optimized touch input to the table. The iPad version takes advantage of the larger display, naturally. Moments after Google released the Gmail app into the wild, unfortunately, they pulled it from the App Store due to “a bug which broke notifications.” As soon as the app returns to the Store you will be notified.

Update 2 (11/16): And it’s back! Get your download on right here.

[Via GoogleBlog; GmailBlog] Continue reading Gmail takes a bold step forward with new look [Update: official iOS app released] →

Facebook announces “the next generation of Messages”

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You’ve certainly used the direct messaging service from Facebook before, and coming soon is a relaunch that will make it smarter and more intuitive.  Get ready to experience “the next generation of Messages.”

When it releases, the new version version of Messages will bring together Messages, Facebook Chat, IM clients, SMS, and email.  You will be able to send and receive messages over the computer or a mobile phone.  A conversation thread within Messages can be carried on in real time across these various devices and chat services.  It’s as easy as selecting a friend’s name, typing a message, and hitting (or tapping) enter to send.  Speaking of email, Facebook is giving every user the option to create an unique @facebook.com email address.  Boom; your FB friends collection just became your new address book.  “To be clear, Messages is not email,” states Facebook.  In fact, the many staples of email (such as subject lines, cc, bcc) will not be present.  The developer team “modeled [the new Messages] more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message.”  Note that creating an @facebook.com email address is not required to use the new Messages portal; it is there as an alternative option to send and receive messages (it adds to Chat, IM, and SMS service support).  Next up is the Social Inbox.  Facebook says, “It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement.”  True, I guess.  Think of Social Inbox as a beefier, smarter version of Gmail’s Priority Inbox.  Your Messages inbox will scan your friends list and prioritize your messages based on that information.  Messages from friends and their friends will show up front and center, while all other messages (such as those from strangers or junk mail) will end up in folder labeled Other.  And conversations can be easily moved from Other to Inbox (if, for example, a stranger turns out to be a friend or relative you hadn’t friended yet).  Facebook promises you’ll have much control over who can and cannot send you messages via email in account settings.

Here’s an interesting look at the future from Facebook’s perspective: “Relatively soon, we’ll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.  We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly.  We aren’t there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.”

And that’s about it.  The new Messages and email address offers will begin to roll out to users “over the next few months”, so hang tight!

[Via FacebookBlog]

Google introduces Priority Inbox for Gmail

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If you’re the kind of person who is constantly receiving vast amounts of email from all over the place (friends, family, special offers, subscription renewals, junk and spam) and having a hard time organizing it all, you are going to jump for joy when Priority Inbox for Gmail hits your account.  Here is the problem Google is attempting to solve with Priority Inbox.  You receive so many emails every day and sometimes it is hard to sort and find what’s important and what isn’t.  Google prides itself for doing a pretty decent job of filtering out all the junk email into the spam folder.  Priority Inbox takes things one step further:

As messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most (if you email Bob a lot, a message from Bob is probably important) and which messages you open and reply to (these are likely more important than the ones you skip over). And as you use Gmail, it will get better at categorizing messages for you. You can help it get better by clicking the (+) or (-) buttons at the top of the inbox to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important. (You can even set up filters to always mark certain things important or unimportant, or rearrange and customize the three inbox sections.)

Neat, huh?  That last part there is the most promising.  Over time Priority Inbox gets better at predicting what messages are important to you.  The new feature will automatically sort your messages into these three folders: important and unread, starred, and everything else.  You have the option to customize and rename these folders if you like.  Priority Inbox is currently in beta and is being rolled out to all Gmail users over the course of this week.  Once you see the “New! Priority Inbox” link at the top right corner of your Gmail window, click it to give it a try.  The video embedded above will help explain this new Gmail feature to you in a brief animation.

[Via GoogleBlog]

Google integrates calling phones feature into Gmail

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If you have a Gmail account, you can now call your friends and family from it.  A new button labeled “Call phone” is now visible at the top of your chat list.  Click it and a dial pad pops up; you can dial a person by entering their phone number or contact name.  After some initial test runs, I am happy to report that calls sound nearly crystal clear on both ends (far better than on Skype).  If you have a Google Voice account, you can easily tweak settings so that you can both send and receive phone calls on your cell phone, too.  Read more about that here.  “For at least the rest of the year” calls made to the U.S. and Canada will remain free of charge.  International rates are fairly cheap; they start as low as .2 cents per minute.  You will be able to purchase additional credits through Google Checkout.  Check out the full list of international rates here.  Before you can start using the new “call phone” feature inside Gmail, you must download the free voice and video plugin for your browser if you haven’t done so already.  Once that’s completed, you’re all set!  Give it a try and remember that calls made within the U.S. and Canada are free…so what are you waiting for?

[Via GoogleBlog]

Concept: Google Mail envelopes make e-mail physical

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Industrial designers Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik have imagined a new way to go about emailing.  This is all conceptual thinking, mind you, but take a knee and listen here.  Google Mail Envelopes is designed to be built into the Gmail service.  When you’re ready to send off an email, you’ll be given two options: send email (as usual) or “send envelope.”  When you click the new button, Google representatives are notified and they print out your email, package it into a Google Maps decorated envelope, and send it off to its destination via the United States Postal Service for a small fee.  The envelope design is neat; the return address and destination labels are placed inside Maps bubbles and they each point to their respective locations on the map.  The two locations are connected by a line, the same line that’s formed when you look for directions online at Google Maps.  In other words, the mail’s exact route is labled on the map on the envelope.  Although this concept is one that will likely never make it into reality (privacy concerns, Google employing letter senders), the idea is quite fascinating.  Turning electronic mail into a physical letter is an option some people might find useful.  It’d be a faster, more efficient way to send a letter–it would eliminate the need to shop for stamps, for one thing.

[Via YankoDesign]