About a week ago, we got an email from our awesome friends from Google letting us know that we had access to Google’s new mail app, Inbox. It offers a bit more functionality than the default Gmail app, and is made to look a little more attractive to boot.
We’ve been using it exclusively for as long as we were granted access, and so far, we’re liking it. It has a few features similar to the email application Mailbox, from the people behind Dropbox, but with some distinct Google enhancements.
Aside from giving you large previews of the message in your inbox, it intelligently groups together related messages in a manner similar to Gmail’s tabs, then allows you to either swipe them right to mark them as done, or swipe to the left to have it snooze and come back later.
Search is also greatly improved, with more natural recognition. You can just search for, say, “next week’s flight details,” or “Joey’s phone number,” and you should see it pop up in the results. So far, it has nailed what we’ve tried to search for, making our extremely cluttered inbox a while lot more usable.
It also lets you pin important emails, much like “starring” with the regular Gmail app, allowing you to more easily find that email you knew was urgent, but didn’t really care enough to check the first time.
Composing emails is also greatly simplified. A quick tap on a huge button at the bottom of the screen brings up a list of most recently and frequently used contacts, so you can fire off an email with almost the same ease as an SMS.
In true Google fashion, it’s an invite-only thing for now, but hang tight. It should be open to everyone before much longer. Well let you know of any new developments as we get them!