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It's really interesting to see the super-knee jerk reaction here when the article itself even says that most of the features made their way into gmail. (I was

It's really interesting to see the super-knee jerk reaction here when the article itself even says that most of the features made their way into gmail. (I was a heavy inbox user, and i am happy with the stuff that made it's way into gmail). Outside of some of the bundling features, i'm curious what actual difference people are complaining about here.

cle 8y ago
People are complaining about having to switch apps. Users have found something that works and they've gotten used to it. Now they'll be forced to switch for no apparent value add. Why do you think people would be okay with that?
- DannyBee 8y ago
  That isn't the part i'm commenting on. It's a general statement on the world that people hate all change :) People have always argued literally every change has no value add for them (and i'm sure for large enough things, there are always people for which that is true). So that part doesn't bug me. But that's not what most of the comments seem to be. Because honestly, if the only complaint people have is "i had to open a different app", that's actually really good for any transition.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Change ... - causes uncertainty (will this still work?); - often comes at an inconvenient time; - requires the user to re-learn the software; - might cause incompatibilities with existing tools. No wonder people mostly don't like updates, especially if they are forced upon them, and if the advantages are not clear. Imho, to address the above points, software should let the user decide when they perform the update, and the user should always be allowed to switch back. Note that this might require data to be migrated back and forth, but of course that's the vendor's problem.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Come on. It's one of the essential, fundamental apps/services for many people with all the strong feelings attached to that. For a Googler to show up and start publicly calling users' reactions 'kneejerk' (completely independent of the accuracy of the claim) and then go on to philosophizing broadly on the nature of change amounts to trolling.
- rrcaptain 8y ago
  Once again Stallman shows that he was right all along.
o_____________o 8y ago
Deleting/sweeping a section of emails away on mobile is a huge productivity boost for me. The Gmail app on Android doesn't have this feature from what I can tell. Snooze was a big one too, but that got crippled in Inbox a while ago as well.
- daxterspeed 8y ago
  The ability to mark emails as done or to pin them were hallmark features of the Inbox interface and they both take significantly more work in Gmail. I'm severely disappointed that they've decided to axe Inbox without at least pretending to care - by eg. providing a user survey.
  - o_____________o 8y ago
    Oh no, pinning! I've so thoroughly integrated that into my expectations and behavior that I didn't even think about it.
    - taborj 8y ago
      Ack, that just hit me now, too.
    - dhruvkar 8y ago
      I don't use Inbox -- what does pinning accomplish?
      - gknoy 8y ago
        Inbox builds on a set of useful primitive ideas, but understanding them is necessary to understand pinning's value. The central idea of Inbox is that your goal is INBOX ZERO, and that after dealing with any email, you swipe it to the side (or mark it as Done with the checkmark in the web UI) and _do not see it again_. (Like 'Archive' in Gmail.) The second idea is that your emails are Bundled by category. This is similar to a tag or a filter, but you can choose to have them still show (as a bundle) in the inbox, rather than being filtered to not-seen oblivion. For example, I had one bundle for Pull Requests, another for Jira notifications. The app auto-categorizers things for Finances, Promos, etc, so many of the spam-like newsletters you get will end up bundled together. (Bundles default to only showing things that are not Done, unless you click a bundle's category on the left navigation bar.) That doesn't sound very useful. What makes it useful is that you can archive/Done an entire category. All of those emails from TeeFury, Newegg, Amazon, Steam, Github, etc that you would normally consider usually-clutter suddenly are SUPER easy to deal with. It basically makes archiving those no longer annoying, as you can do it all at once. Best of all, you see them first, so it's harder to have something get filtered without being noticed. Pinning prevents you from archiving an item (unless you explicitly click it). This means that you can ping something in a bundle, archive the bundle, and it will archive all the other things, and leave the bundle with that one item visible. I am profoundly saddened that Inbox is going away. As others have said, it _changed my life_ in terms of how I dealt with overwhelming email volumes at work.
coldtea 8y ago
>It's really interesting to see the super-knee jerk reaction here when the article itself even says that most of the features made their way into gmail. We didn't just want "most [Inbox] features into gmail". We wanted Inbox's UI and basic approach further developed.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  Again, i don't see most comments saying that here.
  - akerl_ 8y ago
    Can confirm that what I want is Inbox's UI. The ease of postponing items into the "Snoozed" queue, and low-effort addition of task items, are both lacking from the stock GMail app.
    - simeng 8y ago
      I just checked and you can actually set swipe left to snooze in the gmail app now.
      - farslan 8y ago
        It’s not available in the iOS app.
        StudentStuff 8y ago
        Not surprising, developing new features for iOS isn't Google's highest priority, they're targeting where most of the installed userbase is. Similar effects can be seen in the OTT market. Roku gets new features from Sling, Netflix and the other OTT players first, with Chromecast and Fire TV lagging by months or years, and these 2nd tier players are missing Amazon Prime Video (Chromecast) or YouTube (Fire TV) respectively. It seems much like the music sales market IMO...
rickyc091 8y ago
Pressing `T` bringing up the reminders dialog and quickly adding a TODO, then being able to snooze it for a later date. Gmail has `Tasks`, but I'm not aware of it showing up in the same stream as emails.
nathancahill 8y ago
> Outside of bundling Bundling is the main development that Inbox brought to the table.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  Going to the video tape: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/10/an-inbox-that-works-for-you.html https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/10/an-inbox-that-works-for... Three things are highlighted: Extraction of info from items and display (now in gmail) Bundles (some made it into gmail) Reminders, assists, and Snooze (now mostly in gmail) So i'm not sure i'd agree with you here, but i definitely would agree that of the big three, bundling made it in the least :)
  - nathancahill 8y ago
    How can I get bundles in Gmail? Am I missing something?
    - Rebelgecko 8y ago
      Settings -> Inbox -> Categories is analogous, although IMO the UI isn't as nice. I also don't know if that lets you do custom bundles, although that's a feature I never used in Inbox. Edit: and the gmail version of bundles has fewer categories than Inbox does
      - nathancahill 8y ago
        Sorry, not even close. Categories is just automatic folders, every email client has had folders for decades.
        Rebelgecko 8y ago
        Is there a difference, other than bundles are inline with your other emails and categories are accessed in separate tabs?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Outside of some of the bundling features, i'm curious what actual difference people are complaining about here. Gmail’s horribly cluttered interface compared to Inbox, both on web and mobile.
smnrchrds 8y ago
The reason I still use Inbox on Android, even when GMail has most of the same features is its interface design. I much prefer Inbox's approach where the emphesis is on the email subject instead of GMail's emphesis on sender. 90% of my emails are with the same 2-3 colleauges. They represent different threads for different projects and tasks. Gmail interface makes finding the right email cumbersome. I will continue using Inbox until it stops working.
CommieBobDole 8y ago
I never used Inbox, but this seems like another sign that Google has moved to the next stage in the corporate life cycle; they don't need a testbed for innovative features because they're no longer in the innovation business.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Just because they've finished with the features Inbox was a testbed for (which I am deeply disappointed by because Inbox is so much better than Gmail as a daily driver) doesn't mean they are abandoning that kind of testing approach and have no further use for it.
vertoc 8y ago
Gmail doesn't have reminders - and my reminders that I've saved and snoozed, many of which are past March of next year will apparently just disappear once Inbox is sunsetted?
thieving_magpie 8y ago
Bundling (including the "Trips") is the only reason I still use any google web client. It's not trivial.
- jypepin 8y ago
  same here. trips bundling the one killer feature why I use inbox. I really hope it makes its way into gmail before they discontinue it
  - thieving_magpie 8y ago
    I'm with you. That's the only way I'd use gmail. When traveling it's so handy to open up the trips and get all your flight/car rental/hotel details in one small space.
eli 8y ago
I get a ton of email and Inbox does a good job of popping a notification for only the truly important ones. Regular Gmail has the "important" flag which you can train but I get the sense it's not using the same signals or the same algo.
obelos 8y ago
I'm mostly annoyed by the change because the new GMail site takes up twice as much RAM as the already RAM-hungry Inbox site. It's enormous.
Myrmornis 8y ago
Hitting sweep to immediately clear my inbox of all the crap in it that doesn't need dealing with. Trips. Using pinning to effect a simple TODO list.
cflewis 8y ago
Unread counts. They make me anxious. I have Inbox only show emails sent to me. Everything else gets bundled and up at 8AM. Inbox doesn't show unread counts anywhere. I don't have to feel like I'm constantly behind. I think the important point for me is not like "This is a nice to have" or "I don't like extra clicking" it's "This affects my actual health." Literally, it's my health. Not doing this makes people who have mental illnesses like anxiety more unwell.
praneshp 8y ago
Could you disclose your affiliation in such threads, please? (Unless you have moved, in which case I'm sorry)
kartickv 8y ago
Reminders aren't in Gmail, are they? I don't like having to check two inboxes, multiple times a day. Do you know why Google didn't add reminders to Gmail? You also seem to believe that more features are always better, but part of Inbox's charm was that it wasn't bloated like Gmail.

cle 8y ago

People are complaining about having to switch apps. Users have found something that works and they've gotten used to it. Now they'll be forced to switch for no apparent value add. Why do you think people would be okay with that?

DannyBee 8y ago
That isn't the part i'm commenting on. It's a general statement on the world that people hate all change :) People have always argued literally every change has no value add for them (and i'm sure for large enough things, there are always people for which that is true). So that part doesn't bug me. But that's not what most of the comments seem to be. Because honestly, if the only complaint people have is "i had to open a different app", that's actually really good for any transition.
- amelius 8y ago
  Change ... - causes uncertainty (will this still work?); - often comes at an inconvenient time; - requires the user to re-learn the software; - might cause incompatibilities with existing tools. No wonder people mostly don't like updates, especially if they are forced upon them, and if the advantages are not clear. Imho, to address the above points, software should let the user decide when they perform the update, and the user should always be allowed to switch back. Note that this might require data to be migrated back and forth, but of course that's the vendor's problem.
- pvg 8y ago
  Come on. It's one of the essential, fundamental apps/services for many people with all the strong feelings attached to that. For a Googler to show up and start publicly calling users' reactions 'kneejerk' (completely independent of the accuracy of the claim) and then go on to philosophizing broadly on the nature of change amounts to trolling.
rrcaptain 8y ago
Once again Stallman shows that he was right all along.

o_____________o 8y ago

Deleting/sweeping a section of emails away on mobile is a huge productivity boost for me. The Gmail app on Android doesn't have this feature from what I can tell. Snooze was a big one too, but that got crippled in Inbox a while ago as well.

daxterspeed 8y ago
The ability to mark emails as done or to pin them were hallmark features of the Inbox interface and they both take significantly more work in Gmail. I'm severely disappointed that they've decided to axe Inbox without at least pretending to care - by eg. providing a user survey.
- o_____________o 8y ago
  Oh no, pinning! I've so thoroughly integrated that into my expectations and behavior that I didn't even think about it.
  - taborj 8y ago
    Ack, that just hit me now, too.
  - dhruvkar 8y ago
    I don't use Inbox -- what does pinning accomplish?
    - gknoy 8y ago
      Inbox builds on a set of useful primitive ideas, but understanding them is necessary to understand pinning's value. The central idea of Inbox is that your goal is INBOX ZERO, and that after dealing with any email, you swipe it to the side (or mark it as Done with the checkmark in the web UI) and _do not see it again_. (Like 'Archive' in Gmail.) The second idea is that your emails are Bundled by category. This is similar to a tag or a filter, but you can choose to have them still show (as a bundle) in the inbox, rather than being filtered to not-seen oblivion. For example, I had one bundle for Pull Requests, another for Jira notifications. The app auto-categorizers things for Finances, Promos, etc, so many of the spam-like newsletters you get will end up bundled together. (Bundles default to only showing things that are not Done, unless you click a bundle's category on the left navigation bar.) That doesn't sound very useful. What makes it useful is that you can archive/Done an entire category. All of those emails from TeeFury, Newegg, Amazon, Steam, Github, etc that you would normally consider usually-clutter suddenly are SUPER easy to deal with. It basically makes archiving those no longer annoying, as you can do it all at once. Best of all, you see them first, so it's harder to have something get filtered without being noticed. Pinning prevents you from archiving an item (unless you explicitly click it). This means that you can ping something in a bundle, archive the bundle, and it will archive all the other things, and leave the bundle with that one item visible. I am profoundly saddened that Inbox is going away. As others have said, it _changed my life_ in terms of how I dealt with overwhelming email volumes at work.

coldtea 8y ago

>It's really interesting to see the super-knee jerk reaction here when the article itself even says that most of the features made their way into gmail. We didn't just want "most [Inbox] features into gmail". We wanted Inbox's UI and basic approach further developed.

DannyBee 8y ago
Again, i don't see most comments saying that here.
- akerl_ 8y ago
  Can confirm that what I want is Inbox's UI. The ease of postponing items into the "Snoozed" queue, and low-effort addition of task items, are both lacking from the stock GMail app.
  - simeng 8y ago
    I just checked and you can actually set swipe left to snooze in the gmail app now.
    - farslan 8y ago
      It’s not available in the iOS app.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        Not surprising, developing new features for iOS isn't Google's highest priority, they're targeting where most of the installed userbase is. Similar effects can be seen in the OTT market. Roku gets new features from Sling, Netflix and the other OTT players first, with Chromecast and Fire TV lagging by months or years, and these 2nd tier players are missing Amazon Prime Video (Chromecast) or YouTube (Fire TV) respectively. It seems much like the music sales market IMO...

rickyc091 8y ago

Pressing `T` bringing up the reminders dialog and quickly adding a TODO, then being able to snooze it for a later date. Gmail has `Tasks`, but I'm not aware of it showing up in the same stream as emails.

nathancahill 8y ago

> Outside of bundling Bundling is the main development that Inbox brought to the table.

DannyBee 8y ago
Going to the video tape: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/10/an-inbox-that-works-for-you.html https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/10/an-inbox-that-works-for... Three things are highlighted: Extraction of info from items and display (now in gmail) Bundles (some made it into gmail) Reminders, assists, and Snooze (now mostly in gmail) So i'm not sure i'd agree with you here, but i definitely would agree that of the big three, bundling made it in the least :)
- nathancahill 8y ago
  How can I get bundles in Gmail? Am I missing something?
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Settings -> Inbox -> Categories is analogous, although IMO the UI isn't as nice. I also don't know if that lets you do custom bundles, although that's a feature I never used in Inbox. Edit: and the gmail version of bundles has fewer categories than Inbox does
    - nathancahill 8y ago
      Sorry, not even close. Categories is just automatic folders, every email client has had folders for decades.
      - Rebelgecko 8y ago
        Is there a difference, other than bundles are inline with your other emails and categories are accessed in separate tabs?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Outside of some of the bundling features, i'm curious what actual difference people are complaining about here. Gmail’s horribly cluttered interface compared to Inbox, both on web and mobile.

smnrchrds 8y ago

The reason I still use Inbox on Android, even when GMail has most of the same features is its interface design. I much prefer Inbox's approach where the emphesis is on the email subject instead of GMail's emphesis on sender. 90% of my emails are with the same 2-3 colleauges. They represent different threads for different projects and tasks. Gmail interface makes finding the right email cumbersome. I will continue using Inbox until it stops working.

CommieBobDole 8y ago

I never used Inbox, but this seems like another sign that Google has moved to the next stage in the corporate life cycle; they don't need a testbed for innovative features because they're no longer in the innovation business.

dragonwriter 8y ago
Just because they've finished with the features Inbox was a testbed for (which I am deeply disappointed by because Inbox is so much better than Gmail as a daily driver) doesn't mean they are abandoning that kind of testing approach and have no further use for it.

vertoc 8y ago

Gmail doesn't have reminders - and my reminders that I've saved and snoozed, many of which are past March of next year will apparently just disappear once Inbox is sunsetted?

thieving_magpie 8y ago

Bundling (including the "Trips") is the only reason I still use any google web client. It's not trivial.

jypepin 8y ago
same here. trips bundling the one killer feature why I use inbox. I really hope it makes its way into gmail before they discontinue it
- thieving_magpie 8y ago
  I'm with you. That's the only way I'd use gmail. When traveling it's so handy to open up the trips and get all your flight/car rental/hotel details in one small space.

eli 8y ago

I get a ton of email and Inbox does a good job of popping a notification for only the truly important ones. Regular Gmail has the "important" flag which you can train but I get the sense it's not using the same signals or the same algo.

obelos 8y ago

I'm mostly annoyed by the change because the new GMail site takes up twice as much RAM as the already RAM-hungry Inbox site. It's enormous.

Myrmornis 8y ago

Hitting sweep to immediately clear my inbox of all the crap in it that doesn't need dealing with. Trips. Using pinning to effect a simple TODO list.

cflewis 8y ago

Unread counts. They make me anxious. I have Inbox only show emails sent to me. Everything else gets bundled and up at 8AM. Inbox doesn't show unread counts anywhere. I don't have to feel like I'm constantly behind. I think the important point for me is not like "This is a nice to have" or "I don't like extra clicking" it's "This affects my actual health." Literally, it's my health. Not doing this makes people who have mental illnesses like anxiety more unwell.

praneshp 8y ago

Could you disclose your affiliation in such threads, please? (Unless you have moved, in which case I'm sorry)

kartickv 8y ago

Reminders aren't in Gmail, are they? I don't like having to check two inboxes, multiple times a day. Do you know why Google didn't add reminders to Gmail? You also seem to believe that more features are always better, but part of Inbox's charm was that it wasn't bloated like Gmail.