App Creators Aim To Reinvent Email

oke efagene

October 31, 2014 11:30 AM

Google's on a mission to reinvent email. Its weapon: Inbox, a standalone app that was launched recently.

Tech giant, Google, is on a new quest to change the face of email. The firm launched its latest standalone app, Inbox, last week.

Inbox aims to make email more useful with several new tools. It surfaces relevant content (photos, for example) and information from within individual messages so you don't have to open anything to get at what you really want. Bundles sort your messages for you, letting you find important messages faster. Plus you can add your own reminders that work with Google Now.

More importantly, Inbox is not Gmail. Although the whole aim of Google Inbox is to make email more useful, it's not intended to replace the Gmail experience just yet.

Alex Gawley, product director of Gmail and Inbox said: "The way that people deal with their inbox has changed dramatically. We found people really wanted to run their life through their inbox — there was so much information there — but it was a lot of work for them."

Since its launch, Inbox has generated its share of criticism. First, the design makes liberal use of white space, so the app displays fewer messages onscreen at once. However, Jason Cornwell, lead designer for Gmail and Inbox, says that's actually not an issue since, thanks to Bundles, you can actually deal with several messages at once, whereas in other apps you'd archive them one by one.