Gmail

Google almost had a winner with its Material Design that people started imitating in all other places. With the version 2 of its design language, it seemed that Google has generated split opinions on the dominantly white aesthetic. More than just a matter of personal taste, however, Material Design v2 was criticized for burning not just batteries but also eyes. Fortunately, Google is slowly relenting but it seems to be taking its sweet time doing so.

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iOS isn't Google's preferred mobile platform but, in order to keep users from going outside of its ecosystem, it naturally has to play ball. That doesn't mean, however, that all its mobile apps are created equal and, ironically, sometimes Android apps lag behind their iOS counterparts. Gmail for iOS, however, is different and it has, for years, lacked one important functionality. Fortunately, it has finally caught up and Gmail on your iPhone will no longer automatically load external images unless you say it's OK.

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One of the advantages of good old email is that neither sender nor recipient needs to be online at the same time to communicate. On the one hand, it makes it easier to properly think about responses and formulate them. On the other hand, however, you may not know when or if the recipient will be able to read the email, much less send a reply. That's why Google is now fortunately now rolling out a feature that will give you a clue of a colleague or recipient is out of reach and decide whether to still send them an email or wait for a more opportune time.

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Google is bringing dynamic email in Gmail to all users, expanding on the beta that launched earlier this year. Building on AMP, the feature will allow for interactive messages that will mean users can treat the body of an email much as they would a webpage, all without leaving their inbox.

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Many think that email is long overdue a retirement and services like Slack were meant to hasten that. Even Inbox was made by Google for that purpose only to itself be retired before email went out of fashion. Google is, instead, now focusing on how to at least upgrade the email experience via its own Gmail service's new features. Like this Confidential mode that won't exactly make emails safer but will at least make the more secret.

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A barely-publicized Google page may have been tracking every purchase you make online, sucking in online order details from Gmail accounts without most people knowing it's happening. The revelation comes amid Google's attempts to shift the focus away from the huge quantity of personal data it holds on people, and instead position itself as a champion of privacy.

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Google Pay is getting a new feature that makes it easier to retrieve your boarding pass, movie tickets, and other content typically emailed to customers. There's a catch, though: you need to use Gmail as your email service. The new feature is rolling out to Google Pay now, enabling users to automatically harvest tickets and similar content from a Gmail account.

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While many of us are on the lookout for April Fools jokes today, one thing that is decidedly not a prank is the fact that it's Gmail's birthday. Google's email service is turning 15 years old today, prompting Google to look back on those first 15 years in a short retrospective. The big G didn't spend its time only reminiscing about the past, though, as it also took the opportunity to announce some new features coming to the service.

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Google is killing off its well-loved Inbox app but it still hasn't brought its popular features to the main Gmail app. In some cases, Gmail is even inconsistent across the platforms it's available on. Case in point is Gmail on iPhones and iPads which is getting the feature that will let users choose what happens when they swipe on an email. Better late than never, of course, and will at least give them one less thing to complain about.

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Today, Google is rolling out an update to Gmail that's centered around making our emails more dynamic and interactive. The static emails of the past are gone - at least on desktop - and in their place are messages that can automatically update with new information. As a result, users should see more instances where they can take action within an email, instead of jumping to another website in a different tab to complete those actions.

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Inbox is going away. The folks at Google responsible for Inbox by Gmail are likely just as bummed about their work's fate as those that made Google Plus. That's the social network Google made, and the Gmail suite of services - a new interface for the email service - that's proved itself less-than-necessary. Google started notifying users via Gmail and Inbox (inside of which there is Gmail) that Inbox is going away on April 2nd.

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For some people, writing emails is as natural as breathing or speaking. For others, nothing fills them with such dread. In order to ease the burden off users' shoulders, Google created Smart Compose to put its machine learning facilities at their service. Initially available only on the Web and exclusively to the Pixel 3 on smartphones, Smart Compose is now silently rolling out to all Android devices so that no one will have to fear writing an email on their phone.

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