With most of Inbox's feature now migrated over to Gmail, Inbox dies in six months.
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Google kills Google Inbox
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I'm unhappy but unsurprised. The Google way seems to be:
Step 1: Create a thing.
Step 2: Make several different versions of the thing.
Step 3: Kill off people's favorite version of the thing.
Step 4: ?????
Step 5: PROFIT!
Step 1: Create a thing.
Step 2: Make several different versions of the thing.
Step 3: Kill off people's favorite version of the thing.
Step 4: ?????
Step 5: PROFIT!
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Here's Mr. Horse summarizing what I think of this change.
But to elaborate on the subject, I haven't fully utilized the functionality of Inbox. I do appreciate the fact that it automatically categorizes some of my emails, but that is a bit of a hit-and-miss (I do like that all my social media spam of sites I've registered to goes to a "social" category that I can pretty much ignore - but by default, the "Purchases" category doesn't give a notification, which I think is pretty backwards). Still, I don't think what Inbox does is revolutionary by any means. Convenient, perhaps, but that's pretty much the extent of it.
The thing is though, at work we use Google Apps. We're a small company, so why not, it works well for our purposes at the moment. But currently I have two email apps on my phone, Inbox for personal email and Gmail for work email. It is pretty easy to distinguish which one I'm in, just by the colour scheme. If I'll have both email accounts in two different apps (MDM forces that the apps are separate) that look pretty much indistinguishable... there's a non-zero chance that I'll mess around with my work email during "off hours" (especially during weekends) when I'm supposed to use my personal account.
I guess I'll have to look into a "breathalyzer" plugin/extension/whatnot for the work email account. I know one exists for the desktop version, hopefully a solution for an app exists too.
But to elaborate on the subject, I haven't fully utilized the functionality of Inbox. I do appreciate the fact that it automatically categorizes some of my emails, but that is a bit of a hit-and-miss (I do like that all my social media spam of sites I've registered to goes to a "social" category that I can pretty much ignore - but by default, the "Purchases" category doesn't give a notification, which I think is pretty backwards). Still, I don't think what Inbox does is revolutionary by any means. Convenient, perhaps, but that's pretty much the extent of it.
The thing is though, at work we use Google Apps. We're a small company, so why not, it works well for our purposes at the moment. But currently I have two email apps on my phone, Inbox for personal email and Gmail for work email. It is pretty easy to distinguish which one I'm in, just by the colour scheme. If I'll have both email accounts in two different apps (MDM forces that the apps are separate) that look pretty much indistinguishable... there's a non-zero chance that I'll mess around with my work email during "off hours" (especially during weekends) when I'm supposed to use my personal account.
I guess I'll have to look into a "breathalyzer" plugin/extension/whatnot for the work email account. I know one exists for the desktop version, hopefully a solution for an app exists too.
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At least they rolled some of Inbox into Gmail without simply killing it off. Filters and labels can't beat the bundles though.
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So, I just launched ye olde gmail, and yes there are some features from inbox but not the important ones. Where are my reminders!?!
In your to-do app, where they belong?
Sorry, that's snarky. But the serious point: is most of your email about tasks you need to do, rather than communication you're engaging in? Or do you like having tasks and emails in the same place because you use both equally? I ask because to me those are completely unrelated tasks--there's no more association of email and reminders than there is between word processing and reminders. So it seems like having reminders in my email would just mean they'd get buried in all the email. (And, in fact, they do get buried at work, where the only reminders app I have access to is Outlook. I'm forever discovering un-done to-dos from months ago, or discovering that I have 7 reminders that are effectively for the same task, and I marked one of them 'done' when I finished the task, but not the other 6.)
How do you use reminders in email? What for?
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Interesting, I'll have to look into Inoreader. I switched to Feedly, I've gotten used to it and use it everyday, but it doesn't have the social aspect I really enjoyed with Google Reader.
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Can you elucidate? Because I feel like the new tabbed interface to Gmail does bring the same capabilities as Inbox's bundles. But since I could never get Inbox to work for me, it is quite possible I'm missing out on something significant. Why/how are Inbox's bundles so awesome? What do they do that Gmail doesn't, or what to they make easier that Gmail makes hard?
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
fuck.
Does gmail let me mark as done and only show the 20 or so items I have in my inbox that I need to action on?
fuck.
Does gmail let me mark as done and only show the 20 or so items I have in my inbox that I need to action on?
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I've been using that client since it came out. That's a kick in the butt, I really like Inbox.
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Welp, it's just as well that I bit the bullet last year and jumped wholesale to Fastmail. It's unlikely that they'll kill off any feature that I rely on daily given that I pay for the service.
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Oh for fucks sake.
We'll, I won't pretend I'm not mad. The Gmail app *fucking sucks*. Inbox, on the other hand is pretty nice. I literally only use my gmail account as a primary because of Inbox. If google are killing it, I'll switch back to my outlook account as primary - the web interface is better and Outlook on Android is ~68 trillion times better than the truly awful Gmail app.
Why do you do this shit Google? Seriously, fuck you. I hope every employee involved in this decision has a really shitty night's sleep and gets a flat tyre somewhere it's safe to pull over, but inconvenient as fuck.
We'll, I won't pretend I'm not mad. The Gmail app *fucking sucks*. Inbox, on the other hand is pretty nice. I literally only use my gmail account as a primary because of Inbox. If google are killing it, I'll switch back to my outlook account as primary - the web interface is better and Outlook on Android is ~68 trillion times better than the truly awful Gmail app.
Why do you do this shit Google? Seriously, fuck you. I hope every employee involved in this decision has a really shitty night's sleep and gets a flat tyre somewhere it's safe to pull over, but inconvenient as fuck.
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Inbox didn't support 3rd party email addresses, so it was markably less useful than the standard Gmail app.
P.S. The regular Gmail app is so barebones I'm actually trying out the Outlook app right now to see if that works better. Seems ok so far, waiting for that MS lock-in to drop.
P.S. The regular Gmail app is so barebones I'm actually trying out the Outlook app right now to see if that works better. Seems ok so far, waiting for that MS lock-in to drop.
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After reading all of your positive comments about Inbox now I have a desire to start to use it.
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***Insert Michael Scott's Nooooo GIF here***
I've been using inbox since day one and it has been my go to email client on every new device. IMO, inbox still feels way more intuitive and offers better user experience than anything I've tried. This is so sad, because email clients are usually garbage and there is no good alternative in sight.
I've been using inbox since day one and it has been my go to email client on every new device. IMO, inbox still feels way more intuitive and offers better user experience than anything I've tried. This is so sad, because email clients are usually garbage and there is no good alternative in sight.
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Yes, for my college email, most of my email is about tasks I need to do. Set up financial aid, meet with advisor, work on homework, go to event, respond to professor with info.
So, I just launched ye olde gmail, and yes there are some features from inbox but not the important ones. Where are my reminders!?!
In your to-do app, where they belong?
Sorry, that's snarky. But the serious point: is most of your email about tasks you need to do, rather than communication you're engaging in? Or do you like having tasks and emails in the same place because you use both equally? I ask because to me those are completely unrelated tasks--there's no more association of email and reminders than there is between word processing and reminders. So it seems like having reminders in my email would just mean they'd get buried in all the email. (And, in fact, they do get buried at work, where the only reminders app I have access to is Outlook. I'm forever discovering un-done to-dos from months ago, or discovering that I have 7 reminders that are effectively for the same task, and I marked one of them 'done' when I finished the task, but not the other 6.)
How do you use reminders in email? What for?
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If you look at my post on the first page this already kind of exists in Gmail, it just requires you to configure a filter rule.
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It hasn't? Huh, it really hasn't. If it did, would anyone notice?
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So, based your other post, it requires configuration and still doesn't actually work like Inbox. Automatic, smart, bundles are the interface for inbox. If I wanted user folders and filters, I'd use any other email client.
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The bundles are smart. bundle:trips returns exactly the same set of emails as the trips category in inbox. All you need to do is apply a label to that and it will automatically categorize all emails exactly like it would in inbox. As far as I know no other email client allows you to use simple smart rules like that and instead you'd need a complicated set of very specific rules. Gmail labels are also much different than folders and are basically the same thing that Inbox is using anyway.
The downside is that you need to manually create a handful of filtering rules once. This only takes a few minutes but it would nice if Google would allow you to toggle them on/off but it's really a pretty trivial amount of work to get something that works like inbox and is way smarter than any other email client.
Specifically for trips it is still missing the card interface for individual trips since the Gmail app doesn't support that but you can also replicate that by searching for: trip to <city> on <date>
It's not ideal and the UI isn't is as nice but all the functionality exists in Gmail.
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As long as we're mourning Google products of yore...
iGoogle!!!
Hell, I miss how Google used to act like a socially-responsible startup.
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So on the web we're forced to use that POS paged view that Gmail imposes. Great, back to 2000! Thanks, Google, that's progress.
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Here's a great opportunity for Ars to do an article on good email clients, both cloud and non cloud, here in 2018.
I for one would love to switch away from Gmail if possible, but migration? And yes, I know that switching away from gmail is not an email client, but might as well jump ship on my own before Google torpedoes it like they do everything else.
I for one would love to switch away from Gmail if possible, but migration? And yes, I know that switching away from gmail is not an email client, but might as well jump ship on my own before Google torpedoes it like they do everything else.
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It would be one thing if I could mark emails in gmail done like in inbox...but evidently the most useful feature in inbox is not in gmail.
I’ve never been more mad at google than right now.
Fuck you google
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Oh no no no. It's much more more modern than that - the most recent redesign moved to some slow-loading, even more JavaScript-heavy format that is really quite disturbingly slow in Firefox even on new desktops. (As I've understood it they go hog wild with DOM operations and rely on some shadow DOM trickery to make it fast. It works fine in chrome.)
I'm very close to setting the old light mode as default - and that one really does feel like a blast from the past.
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How about not inventing a new god damn project and killing it off X amount of time later Google? Android TV for instance, hanging on a thread, a small niche of us using it...I just know it's going to die at some point.
I'm also scared as hell they are going to kill off Google Voice. That hosts my real phone number.
I'm also scared as hell they are going to kill off Google Voice. That hosts my real phone number.
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There is a green tick in Inbox to say it's done with the email. How do you do this in Gmail?
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I didn't even know they are dropping Play Music! My day is irrevocably ruined
Also: I can't believe Play Music Android app is still as sluggish as when it was announced in 2011.
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I never really used Inbox, but Inbox users probably feel the way I did when Google killed off Reader and Talk.
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So, I just launched ye olde gmail, and yes there are some features from inbox but not the important ones. Where are my reminders!?!
In your to-do app, where they belong?
Sorry, that's snarky. But the serious point: is most of your email about tasks you need to do, rather than communication you're engaging in? Or do you like having tasks and emails in the same place because you use both equally? I ask because to me those are completely unrelated tasks--there's no more association of email and reminders than there is between word processing and reminders. So it seems like having reminders in my email would just mean they'd get buried in all the email. (And, in fact, they do get buried at work, where the only reminders app I have access to is Outlook. I'm forever discovering un-done to-dos from months ago, or discovering that I have 7 reminders that are effectively for the same task, and I marked one of them 'done' when I finished the task, but not the other 6.)
How do you use reminders in email? What for?
My emails are kind of like a to do list. It's part of inbox zero. If I need to take no further action on an email, then it gets archived. For example, I have an email from my mom I need to respond to and I'll archive when I do, a shipping notice that I'll archive when it arrives, a bill that I'll archive when I pay it, etc. Mixed in there are things I need to remember to do that aren't precipitated by an email. I used to email myself with the subject line "remember to call the vet," but integrated reminders (with snooze and granular repeating control) was a massive improvement.
More importantly, I see my reminders every time I look at my email. I have had a hard time remembering to actually look at reminder apps so i'll probably go back to emailing myself.
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New note to self. Don’t use any product from google unless shutting it down would LITERALLY cause riots.
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So... Anyone have suggestions for another app with similar functionality? Gmail app doesn't count if course.
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