Gmail redesign turns it into a one-stop productivity suite

arstechnica: “It looks like big changes are coming to Gmail. Twitter user Tahin Rahman posted leaked slides(first spotted by 9to5Google) detailing a merger between Gmail, Google Docs, Google Chat, and Google Meet that looks to be coming to the Web and mobile soon. Google’s “Cloud Next 2020” conference kicked off yesterday and will be ongoing for the next three weeks, and we’ve heard rumors in the past detailing this exact thing, so the slides appear to have been leaked early. The goal of all this looks to be turning Gmail into a one-stop-shop productivity site, where you can do Slack-style room-based chat or single chats, make video calls, edit documents, and send emails. The desktop site is getting extra controls in the top header and sidebar, while the main panel—which normally shows the inbox or a message—looks like it can be swapped out for other content, like a Google Doc. Meet video calls can be full-screened or float around in a picture-in-picture-style window. Don’t forget, this is all in addition to the right-side panel that was introduced in the 2018 redesign, which also lets you open Google Calendar, Keep, and Tasks inside Gmail. With this design, it’s like having every Google productivity app—Gmail, Chat, Meet, Calendar, Keep, and Tasks—crammed into a single page that makes you wonder why it’s even called “Gmail” anymore. Gmail has had a side-by-side two-panel view for a while, showing an Outlook-style inbox on the left and a message on the right. With this redesign, it looks like there’s more of a focus on the two-panel view. The “Chats” page uses this two-panel view by default, and you can show “Chat,” “Files,” or “Tasks” in the left panel, with a document or something else living in the right panel. Google appears to be taking the layout of Gmail and using it for all sorts of other functionality. The mobile Gmail app is getting revamped, too, with bottom tabs for “Mail,” “Chat,” “Rooms,” and “Meet” all in the single Gmail app…”

Gizmodo: “The year is 1997. You’re wearing whatever people wore back then—some kind of jean jacket, I’m guessing—and talking to your friend about your new favorite movie, the recently-released Mike Myers vehicle Austin Powers. You’re quoting the movie, and your friend thinks this is hilarious. Then things take a dark turn. “I thought Randy Quaid was excellent,” your friend says. “Randy Quaid?” you think, trying hard not to punch the wall. “Randy Quaid wasn’t in Austin Powers.” You try explaining this to your friend—“I believe,” you say tersely, “that you’re thinking of Clint Howard”—but your friend is adamant. To settle this dispute, and salvage what remains of your friendship, you boot up your 90-pound computer tower. Forty minutes later, you have made it onto the internet. The question now is: where do you go? How, before Google, did people settle asinine disputes, and/or find other sorts of information? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts to find out…”

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