Google is Killing Its 4-Yr-Old Inbox Email App (fastcompany.com) 64
An anonymous reader shares a report: Back in 2014, the folks at Google responsible for Gmail did something unexpected: They introduced a new email app. On the back end, Inbox was the same thing as Gmail, and worked with your existing Gmail address. But as a user experience, as then-senior VP Sundar Pichai explained in a blog post, Inbox was "designed to focus on what really matters." It was conceived with mobile devices in mind and ditched a decade's worth of Gmail cruft in favor of tools focused on email efficiency, such as the way it displayed attachments right in the inbox view and incorporated a built-in task manager.
Over the subsequent years, Inbox been a proving ground for features -- such as "Smart Reply" --which later made their way into Gmail, especially with the latter's sweeping new upgrade. So much of Inbox has rubbed off on Gmail, in fact, that it shouldn't come as a complete shock that Google has decided that Inbox has served its purpose. The company is announcing today that it's decided to discontinue the app, which will fade away by the end of next March.
Over the subsequent years, Inbox been a proving ground for features -- such as "Smart Reply" --which later made their way into Gmail, especially with the latter's sweeping new upgrade. So much of Inbox has rubbed off on Gmail, in fact, that it shouldn't come as a complete shock that Google has decided that Inbox has served its purpose. The company is announcing today that it's decided to discontinue the app, which will fade away by the end of next March.
Such is the fate of all Google products (Score:5, Insightful)
Rely on them if you dare.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
yeah like that seamless transition off of google wave...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And that seamless transition from at least the perception of privacy to an online panopticon!
Re:Such is the fate of all products everywhere (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fixed the title for you. :)
It's not the fate that's an issue. It's the rate at which a company products or platforms from cradle to grave in such short order.
That's abnormal, and sometimes I wonder the wisdom of such a practice.
Re: (Score:1)
Google are fucking morons. They put out like 10 products that do the same thing, then kill them all off a year later.
Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't used to using google shit in your workflow
Re: (Score:1)
don't use SaaS in your workflows.
WHAT?? (Score:5, Funny)
Google is discontinuing a service it started a few years ago?! Glad I was sitting down for that bit of news...
I am shocked. SHOCKED!!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"Google kills four year old" .. a better headline, or clickbait? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
"Google kills four year old" .. a better headline, or clickbait? ;)
Both!!
Dupe (Score:2, Informative)
At least this time when Google is killing a product, they're killing one that is redundant with other products.
I guess this is better than Google dropping a third competing email client on us, right? Now, if they could just consolidate their "chat" and "messaging" apps into one...
Re: (Score:1)
The ballots you're reading when voting, they say "Republican is blue".
Remember that, don't believe whatever someone else tells you, just vote blue.
Just thought I'd help those with reading-comprehension deficiencies in the world. Civic duty and all.
Gmail, the worst interface EVER (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
They spent all that money working on a UI that is designed to anger you. Specifically you.
Yes, they are out to get you. Watch your back. Google is on the hunt.
Re: (Score:1)
Oddly, you're one of the few that has that problem. It's email, not a database, it's not complex.
Btw, it does indent messages in a thread, I just checked to verify in my google mail. At least the web interface, since I don't use the app.
Use the basic HTML version (Score:1)
Use the basic HTML version you get when you disable Javascript. It is quick and efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Not the worst, the Outlook webmail is way worse.
All the bad things about GMail are here too. But GMail is well polished, Outlook is not. The Windows version is OK.
Re: (Score:2)
The outlook webmail UI is okay, but the search sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Outlook webmail is okay, once focused inbox is disabled.
Re: (Score:2)
The gmail app was so bad I switched to the outlook app. That still sucks, but it sucks a lot less. I'm very confused how google engineers use email, because it does not seem to be the way most normal people use email.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know about anyone else, but I use gmail because of the excellent spam filtering. Do I use Google to read the mail? Of course not. Their mail stuff is slow, clunky, and very hard to use. Google supports imap/smtp, so I just read and send mail with Alpine. But I reckon a locally hosted GUI email program would work just as well.
Google devs have never understood UIs (Score:1)
Judging by the evidence they put before us, it seems that Google devs have never understood what makes a good UI, and even less do they have any appreciation for what makes a bad one. This may be why all their client-side applications have always been an embarassment and barely serviceable. We use them because their server-side is free, despite their client sides being dramatically worse than the GUIs of applications in the 1980's.
This isn't
Re: Gmail, the worst interface EVER (Score:1)
Perhaps the totalitarian Progressives who control Google have created such a hostile work environment that most of the talented programmers have left.
Re: (Score:2)
Now what do I do (Score:2)
So I like the Inbox filtering and folders for prioritizing, and don't much care for the idea of a third party client since those can only have other security issues.
The Android Gmail app does this? Or am I using web Gmail to do the filtering?
Am I too lazy to figure this out directly?
Re: (Score:2)
So I like ... folders for prioritizing
Surprise! Gmail doesn't have folders. It has Labels. If you're using labels as simple replacements for folders, you are missing one of the benefits of Gmail.
For example, imagine you receive a new email that has to do with a proposed shipping contract of snowshoes to Alaska. If you have labels for Proposals, Contracts, Snowshoes, and Alaska you apply these labels to the email and remove the inbox label. Now it is easy to click on the Alaska label to see all correspondence that deals with Alaska. You
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Pine and Mutt still going strong (Score:5, Funny)
Pine is good, but it's not Elm.
Re: (Score:2)
Pine (going on 26 years) and Mutt (going on 23 years) are still my favorite daily driver email clients and going strong.
Gmail supports IMAP and SMTP, should you be so inclined ...
Fancy that (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I had never heard of it until today.
Did you hear about airplane?
Inbox was actually good! (Score:2)
Inbox was one of the few Google apps I really liked. Integrated mail and reminders is fantastic. Of course they killed it. This only spurs me to move further away from Google. I've already replaced Play Music with a self hosted solution, the same for Drive, Play Books, Keep, and Calendar. Switched back to Firefox after 8 years of Chrome. If only someone made a decent Linux phone.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Plex Media Server does a similar job with regards to your own media files, which is what I assume the GP meant by "self-hosted."
Migration (Score:2)
Would Google aid in migration of a few differences between Inbox and Gmail?
Inbox mark as Done is in sync with Gmail archive
Inbox read doesn't seem to equate with Gmail read
Inbox pinned is also not the same as Gmail starred
Please create a migration tool, so all Pinned messages would be starred and all Read messages are also marked as read in Gmail.
... it does not stick to the wall... (Score:2)
Google Hasn't Released A Statement Yet (Score:3)
Talked to a Google support rep via Google One yesterday, and according to them there is no _official_ word that Google is terminating Inbox, for what that's worth.
We can't have people being all productive, can we? (Score:2)
This is a terrible decision. Inbox on the desktop and mobile are terrific products. I don't see ANYTHING wrong with them. I wonder what sort of shitty data-driven decision making was behind this.