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Comment by OmarIsmail | Hacker News Reader

The most exciting news here is that they're iterating on Gmail again. It was clear that Gmail was stagnating for a while as they were investing in Inbox. It's unfortunate that Inbox didn't take off, but now that it looks like they're putting the effort behind Gmail proper, we'll be seeing continual updates and improvements.

In just the past 6 months we've seen native Gmail add-ons (that work across web and mobile) and now confidential mode, Calendar/Keep/Tasks sidebars, and Material look and feel.

It's more work for us working on the InboxSDK, but I'm gladly willing to make the tradeoff of some extra work for a more robust and vibrant underlying platform.

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I've been an avid Inbox user for years. Anyone knows what's next for Inbox? Looks like it might be folded back into Gmail and discontinued as standalone?

I'd think so, too. The iOS app still hasn't been updated for the iPhone X screen...

It seems like most of these new features are Inbox, so I won't be surprised if we see it discontinued.

> Anyone knows what's next for Inbox?

Getting canned?

Google has said that there are no current plans to change or discontinue Inbox. So, at least for the immediate future, if you like Inbox, you can use Inbox.

Afaik Inbox will be like testing grounds for features that might come to Gmail in the future.

I am sure we will soon see it in the Google Graveyard ( https://www.wordstream.com/articles/retired-google-projects )

I'll be real annoyed if they end Inbox, because I use inbox's Reminders heavily. I love having my todo items and emails in the same place, because that's what my inbox IS to me.

Inbox didn’t take off? That’s news to me! It’s the only way I use gmail, I haven’t used the old interface since inbox was released. It pairs with the mobile app really well.

For Inbox, I remember switching, seeing the new tabs, saying "Meh, those are useless" and going back to the normal interfaces since.

Did you not figure out what was actually different about it?

As far as I know Inbox bundles are a unique feature and one I could not do without.

The thing is, I didn't see anything new that made me wish to use it. I just saw new part to the interface that seemed useless to how I use gmail, so I went back.

Inbox bundles are a revelation. I guess it's a shame Google failed to get the message out better.

I, for one, hated bundles. They didn't give me enough control. I'm glad they worked well for you.

The key feature is bundles _in the inbox_

Folders and filtering rules never worked for me because they gave me multiple "to do" lists. It's vital for managing complexity to have a single queue to work through. If you want to use your inbox for that - then traditional email clients fall short.

If something is filtered out of my inbox then I usually end up forgetting about it. If I can't group things in my inbox then it becomes overwhelming.

Yeah i actually stopped using gmail, and exclusively use inbox too. Would gladly go back to gmail if I could get a comparable experience!

Inbox UX is not info dense enough and I don't like the auto categorizing it does for me. Makes me feel like I'll miss stuff.

I use a combination of Gmail on the desktop and Inbox on a phone. I tried to use Inbox on desktop for a while, but ended up switching back as the desktop version of Inbox was too dumbed down and controlling for my liking:

- The mobile app arbitrarily doesn't allow labelling something and keeping it in the inbox.

- It puts emails in the inbox under a folder when labelled by a filter, which usually ends obscuring important messages.

- It doesn't have something equivalent to inbox sections (I use the crap out of these as my inbox has multiple different streams of things to action in it from multiple email aliases - personal, business, opensource, travel, bills, etc).

- As others have mentioned, Inbox is not very information dense.

Google sure had a challenge updating Gmail, since there's so many people using it in different ways. It'd be really interesting to see their top usage patterns summarised.

Update: disappointment - priority inbox sections haven't been updated. They're still limited to 2 by the UI, and the new UI still doesn't expose "with label, in inbox" that's been possible for years by modifying the HTML on the page. The Gmail server clearly supports this, so it's a shame they haven't implemented a UI for it. I hope this doesn't break the hack people have been using to get 4 sections with messages only from the inbox...

I've done the exact same thing. Inbox was nice on-the-go, Gmail is nice on the desktop.

I love Inbox on mobile but I stopped using it on Desktop because it was so slow (sluggish). I have top of the line systems and it still felt so sluggish. Don't have that problem on the app.

Google add ons is a poor excuse for extending Gmails functionality.

I tried to create a basic app a few months ago and it is extremely limited and feels very much beta.

An example: extending compose functionality in any way is impossible.

Add ons are limited to when the user opens an email, that's pretty much it. Try for yourself and see.

I built Streak's Gmail add-on (launch partner, and #1 add-on in the marketplace) so trust me when I say that I'm very aware of the platform's shortcomings :)

If you want to do something fancy then I highly recommend using the InboxSDK (inboxsdk.com).

But for basic functionality the add-ons are pretty sweet. Native mobile integration is huge, alongside massive a great distribution channel. Not sure if you've noticed in the new Gmail but they put a + button below the list of Calendar/Keep/Tasks icons that brings up the Add-On installation modal. That's pretty major.

I completely agree, with mobile adoption, addons reach will be incredible and I want it to happen just like any other dev.

I will eventually monetize the app I build but won't go down the path of using Google's own addon platform. It will likely be InboxSDK as you point out.

The sad thing here is with InboxSDK being limited to Desktop but brilliantly feature rich, my adoption will be curved by desktop use only. I imagine businesses will be much more inclined to use Google's addon market place because the ease of deployment to users, rather than a Chrome extension etc.

How have your Enterprise users deployed your app to users?

I haven't noticed the + yet, I'll look out for this next time. Thanks for your suggestions.

I wish they'd just fix Gmail sync between tabs. Sending a reply to a message you've already replied to (because the first reply didn't show up in the tab) is embarrasing.

That seems like a non-problem. You can easily prevent it by having only one Gmail tab open at a time.

Not with GMail, which I don't use, but sometimes I open a site again instead of looking for it in the windows and tabs I leave open forever (32 GB RAM help). It happens with Google Drive and Docs. Maybe the OP also keeps many tabs open.

If you have so many tabs open that you forget what you have open and start opening new tabs of the same site, then you should have fewer tabs open.

This reminds me of the joke where, upon realizing that normal pens don’t work in space, the US spent millions of dollars developing a “space pen” that will work in zero-gravity, while Russia just decided to use pencils.

That pen thing would be a great anecdote....if it were true.

It's substantially true. The pen was developed by a private company rather than the government, but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole. Using pencils in space did cause genuine issues, but the Russian space programme did live with those issues until the space pen was developed.

>but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole.

Of course, that's not what anyone means when they repeat this nonsense, and the entire point of the story is to create a narrative that the US government is bloated, wasteful, and stupid.

I've seen it more used to create a narrative about US culture as being overly technology-focused and lacking a sense of making do / good-enough. Shrug.

Regardless, using a BS story to push such a narrative is a bad idea.

.. then Russians learned pencil breaking off in space ain't good and bought same American pens :)

Graphite from pencils breaks into small splinters that fly around in zero-g and short out equipment.

Sometimes I write and review a long email in one tab over the course of an hour or so while still responding to shorter emails in another tab. Just yesterday I had to out together a small report with some log examples and network graphs.

So there's 2 tabs open. Sometimes I'll also have older emails open to refer back to them. Easily brings that to 3, 4, 5 tabs.

It also doesn't properly update the mobile app or notifications, and I have one coworker who shows up as a different name whether I'm using the desktop or mobile app.

I use pinned tabs for sites like these (messengers etc). Safari mirrors one instance among all your windows so you never end up with multiple copies pinging away with notifications

> That seems like a non-problem. You can easily prevent it by having only one Gmail tab open at a time.

That seems like a non solution. I frequently compose multiple documents full screen, while multitasking between different items of work. Judging by the upvotes before your edgy comment I'm not the only one.

Other apps maintain state being used in multiple windows, gmail should do the same.

I'm not so optimistic. New UI for me looks like an unfocused drawing of a child. What's more - I rarely used the webUI previously (prefer IMAP, which kinda sucks in case of gmail) but now it's slower and looks uglier... (IMVHO)

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