More power to mails with Inbox
Google’s latest offering looks to simplify the user experience
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-10-25 22:37 GMT
Google often comes up with new innovations and projects, rarely tweaking the ones that are up-and-running in millions of multiple devices already. So when they want to change email for the better, it might be something worth checking out.The company is in the process of rolling out a new email app called Inbox. Yes, the first obvious question that comes to mind is if it will be replacing Gmail. Well, no, it won’t be.Announced via blog post, Inbox is based upon Gmail’s relatively successful tabs, which introduced separate sections for social updates, forums and promotions. Here are some of its new features:
Bundles
This feature will group together similar kinds of messages, so things like bank statements, social notifications, travel reminders, financial emails and receipts are grouped together. The feature, by default, bundles up all the high priority emails and low priority emails together. But Bundles will be highly user-customisable as well, giving it the much needed flexibility.
Highlights
Highlight puts all the important emails front and centre. These will include travel itineraries, photos from friends and event information, all of which can be highlighted using a ‘pin’ symbol. The app will even bring in useful information from the web that’s not in the email, such as tracking info for a package. While it functions pretty much in the same way as ‘Starred’ feature in Gmail, Highlight isn’t integrated with it — meaning pinned emails don’t translate into starred emails.
Reminders
The third, and arguably the most useful feature, is Reminders. Users can set reminders to alert them about various tasks and surface relevant information at the required time. It also has a snooze function that will let users dismiss both messages and reminders temporarily.
Google claims that it was the Gmail team that built Inbox, but it’s not an update to Gmail. It’s a separate app that works with Gmail accounts, although Google says it’ll honour any mail forwarding or POP/IMAP settings you’ve set up in Gmail.
Inbox looks neat and promising, but its biggest drawback at the moment seems to be its selective integration with the regular Gmail. If its makers are able to get that one out of the way, there’s a good chance the app will become a runaway hit.