Ask HN: Do people at Google not use Gmail? Why don't they improve it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do people at Google not use Gmail? Why don't they improve it?

19 pointsmr-pink25 comments

for starters, why can't Google distinguish an actual attachment from some image someone has in their signature?

I have a feeling you're not really looking for answers, but ... Yes, we use Gmail. We do try to improve it. For example, I think smart compose is a pretty nice improvement.

I'm not sure about the specific issue you're facing. For me, attachments show up as these rounded rectangles and images in the signature don't. I'm currently on mobile, so I'm not sure about the web UI. Can you post a screenshot?

Tell whoever is in charge that I want Inbox back, thanks, lol.

On the very small chance you'll see this -- Gmail has begun bouncing Google Calendar notifications, and the bounce notice goes back to ... Gmail. So I still get notified, but via a bounce.

I saw that there's a small update on the UI now because of Chat (former hangout, former...) but the point raised by OP is still true. If your signature includes pictures it counts as an attachment and the UI and everything still looks like 2004 when the beta started.

I'm not saying that should change everything ... but in 20 years the only thing different is now there's more integrations with other products but gmail is still the same.

https://i.imgur.com/eTKuNbV.jpg

Happens fairly frequently on Gmail. That email will show up as has:attachment

Strictly speaking, it does have attachments. The <img> tag's `src` attribute can point to a remote resource or a resource attached to the email. This is an example of the latter.

That's just how email works. Those are attachments.

i don't want answers. i just want improvements. i spend hours a day dealing with gmail. it would be nice if they considered how much time people spend using their software and had a desire to improve things.

how is smart compose useful? maybe if you never learned how to touch type. or if you want to sound like the most generic person possible.

It's useful because it saves me time and effort when writing emails.

I know how to touch type.

Most of my email responses are pretty generic, I'm not writing any haikus. Should I be?

i just find it awful and distracting. i have to consider what google is suggesting and whether i agree with the tonality and relevance rather than freely expressing what i want to say.

I write lots of emails in english and I'm not a native english speaker. Having a smart email completion thing saves me lots of time. US is not the center of the universe

It helps give Google an excuse to comb through all of your personal emails and put the data into a machine learning model.

They already have excuses for that, but this one justifies a bit more.

Yes, but the overwhelming majority of Googlers don't work on gmail.

My cynical take is that they have 2 billion users and aren't really interested in making significant changes to existing functionality.

When I was at Google, I really wanted fixed-width text (I managed to add this with a user style) and tree threading.

With that many users I have to think any change is a 25/75 love/hate equation.

There's a paperclip next to the date and if you hover over it, a tooltip gives the name of the attached file.

I don't think I've ever confused an attachment with an image anyways, but there at least seems to be a standardized way to differentiate them.

Google employees do use an internal version of gmail. (I don't work at Google though)

when i hover it just says "has attachment"

Inbox was a pretty big improvement, until they killed it...

Hello fellow Inboxer!

People who put images in their signature should be beaten with clubs and left bleeding in the moonlight.

I have to imagine most users never actually login to the web app and interface via a mail client, either mobile or desktop.

It has been years since I logged into gmail, and the only reason I did was to re-enable IMAP which they disabled on their own for some reason.

Mobile maybe but the majority of casuals I know definitely still log in via the web interface.

they don't improve it because googlers think everything they build is the fruit of their genius.

The worst part about it is that they get paid to fix what's not broken... it leads to those changes that nobody wants.

« The best minds on the planet » they say. How can they be wrong, ever??

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