Google Begins "Gmail 2.0" Rollout

Stony Stevenson writes "Google on Tuesday confirmed it is giving Gmail a new look. This blog post has screenshots of a new Gmail interface that has been made available to a limited number of users. They are calling it "Gmail 2.0" even if Google isn't. Google confirmed the update is underway at its new San Francisco office, just prior to a briefing on an unrelated upcoming Google announcement. A Google spokesperson said that the new look has been made available to about one percent of all Gmail users and is being rolled out the rest on an ongoing basis."

2.0?

I guess I didn't realize that gmail was past 1.0 yet. I thought it was still a beta.

Re:2.0?

I'm guessing they are calling it 2.0 because of the URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2 [google.com] instead of http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1 [google.com]

But they should be calling it Gmail UI2 instead of 2.0.

version 2 had better sync !

first of all lets me get this straight I think Gmail is good client and the IMAP access has gone a long way to make it even better BUT

gmail does NOT SYNC with anything e.g. my contacts in my phone

solution = syncML !

contacts, calendar etc lots of others e.g. plaxo (annoying interface) and ZYB have this sorted and here I am fumbling around with CSV files

I hate it I try and sync with many differant devices and just wish there was a nice way
hell there is a thunderbird plugin there is a outlook plugin and MOST phones support it....

please please google gmail 2 should focus on contacts and introduce syncML !

regards

John Jones

Re:2.0?

I'm afraid google use the term 'beta' correctly. They just have higher standards than you.

Re:2.0?

Wow... 110% you say? that explains the email from '[e-mail]' I keep getting.

Re:2.0?

Dear Spokehedz,

GET ME OUT OF HEEEERE!!!!!!!

Yours,

unbornfetus33421

Re:2.0?

You prefer that users expect 1.0 to mean 'beta'?

Thanks to Microsoft, I think most already do. Isn't it common nowadays for users in general, and those in TI in particular, to expect any new OS developed by them to only work correctly after its first service pack? I know I do. 2000 wasn't good. 2000 SP-1 (or more, I don't remember) made it good. XP wasn't good. XP SP-1 was. Vista isn't good. Vista SP-1 probably will be. And so on and so forth.

Actually, even back in the days Microsoft used numbers to differentiate product versions, it was common sense that "x.0" versions weren't worth it. Those who knew advised users to prefer a previous version with a higher number after the dot, as by then it would be stable and actually working as expected...

In short: whenever Google decides to remove the "beta" tag from Gmail, I doubt they're going to call it "Gmail 1.0". It wouldn't be good for business.

Re:2.0?

The whole "Beta" thing that google and company do is really starting to piss me off. It's getting regular users to expect "Beta" to mean "1.0" and when Beta turns out to actually mean Beta, they get all pissy.

I lay the blame at the feet of open source developers who started this nonsense. Far too many open source utilities have had years of stable versions numbered <1.0. These apps are in permanent "beta" simply because the developers don't want take responsibility for a finished product. It ate your hard drive? Ooh, sorry. You gotta expect some bugs in a beta. We expect it to be finalized sometime before the heat death of the universe. But don't quote us on that.

Re:2.0?

I guess I didn't realize that gmail was past 1.0 yet. I thought it was still a beta.

I'd call the new version even more beta-ish than the older.

On the plus side:

a) Clicking a message opens it almost instantly. This is a HUGE improvement.

On the bad side, two very annoying problems:

b) Scrolling up or down in the message list is much slower than the older version, either with the scroll bar or with the mouse wheel.

c) The label-applying drop-down being now an HTML element makes scrolling it with the mouse wheel painful. The moment the I hit the end of the list, it start scrolling the whole page down. Previously, it'd hit the end of the labels list stop there.

For me, 'a' isn't worth dealing with 'b' and 'c', so now I have a bookmark that opens https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1 [google.com] directly. UI 2 isn't polished enough yet. But things are probably going to improve. It's just a matter of time.

Trust?

How much do you trust Google?

Re:Trust?

I trust it enough to use it for email. Anybody who would email stuff that was sensitive is kinda nutty. I mean come on, it's the internet, crackerland, insecurenet, etc. So what if you use super encryption and all that jazz? If you send something sensitive, somebody can get hold of it one way or another. I guess there's some thrill involved in all of that, but when I contact the mothership, it's always face to face. No reason letting you humans in on the secret.

Oops.

JavaScript back-end?

...thanks to a JavaScript back-end rewrite...

I highly doubt that GMail uses JavaScript on the back-end. In fact, it is pretty well known that GMail is written in Java and only uses JavaScript on the front-end.

Re:JavaScript back-end?

It's the frontend's backend. What's hard to understand here ?

Re:JavaScript back-end?

From a purely client-side perspective, what he sees, the images, html and all that, is the front-end. What deals with all the different states on the client-side, is also the back-end.

Well, that explains it

From TFA (first link):

If there's a downside to Google's upgrade, it's that third-party extensions to Gmail may stop working.

So now I know why my GMail notifier add-on to Firefox died in the last couple of days. Went with Google's own notifier applet as a substitute in the meantime, but would prefer the old way. We'll see how soon that becomes possible.

Nice

I noticed this this afternoon. I haven't read TFA, so I don't know if they mention it, but switching from listing/viewing messages is pretty much instant now. It appears to pre-load messages, which is nice.

Faster access due to pre-fetching and caching

Apparently, one of Google's goal in releasing this new version is to provide a new code framework that will help them to speed up Gmail's response time in a number of areas. One feature of note is that Gmail now pre-fetches and caches messages in the current view, so when you click on a message, it loads almost instantly. On my broadband connection, I see much improved response--clicking a message now displays it almost instantly--no lags or delays.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/ [gmailtips.com]

Re:Faster access due to pre-fetching and caching

>>Apparently it crashes Opera faster than ever.

Until Google develops to make it more compatible with Opera, you may want to either try the "Older version" link at the top of the page, or the "Basic HTML" link at the bottom. At least they're providing viable options.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/ [gmailtips.com]

Not deploying with any rhyme or reason...

My wife, of all people, ended up getting this--she called me in yesterday and wanted to know "What the hell is wrong with [my] Gmail?" Among other things, it looks like they've further integrated the IM features (which we both hate) and made them far more difficult to disable. She's one of those computer users that gets absolutely terrified and unnerved if anything about her computing experience changes, so this is not at all a positive thing. Fortunately, there is an "Older version" link in the upper right corner that reverts back.

Re:Not deploying with any rhyme or reason...

I tried it and it sends me back to the old one.

Re:Not deploying with any rhyme or reason...

Unfortunately, Beta is the new "hip". (or the new Black if you prefer) Somewhere along the line it was decided that you are edgy and groundbreaking if you "get into beta." I actually had one of my friends tell me I wasn't a real gamer because I didn't get into a beta test. (Coincidentally, I am/was not a FilePlanet subscriber and these were the only people "accepted", so I didn't feel a huge loss by it since I didn't have to pay to bug test.)

Screw the interface...

Just give me bigger attachments.

FTP loses based on ease of use

Sheesh, when will people understand that EMAIL was *not* concieved for large binary attachements...

They won't. Not trying to be snide but that battle was lost long ago. It does not matter that FTP is technically more efficient and better designed for file transfer. Attaching a file is simple and, like it or not, using an ftp server involves more steps, additional software, additional security, and additional training. FTP fails the mom test. It's harder than attaching a file for NO additional benefit to the user in 99.999999% of cases. Furthermore, most people do not have or know about ftp servers, they have email accounts. So they use the tool they have and know how to use.

Does this cause problems for the network admins? Sure. Doesn't matter though. Ease of use/learning for the user wins here. If you want ftp to be used, make it easier to use than attaching a file and people will flock to it. Until then, it's going to be used only by nerds like me in the few special cases where ftp is the only alternative.

Re:Why not use a protocol concieved for attachment

...and how are binaries on usenet less hackish than binaries in e-mail??

[whine]...

...how 'bout first enabling that promised IMAP interface so I can ditch the unreliable POP on my iPhone?[end-o-whine]

Re:[whine]...

IMAP seem to be only rolled out to people with English(US) language settings at the moment. To enable IMAP, I had to:

1) Change the language setting from English(UK) to English(US).
2) Go back to settings, and then into the newly available "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab.
3) Enable IMAP.
4) Configure my client (Thunderbird) and make a successful connection.
5) Go back into the settings, and change the language back to English(UK). The "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab changes back to just "Forwarding and POP".
6) Continue using my sweet, sweet, IMAP.

This method is hit and miss it seems. But hopefully some people might be lucky.

Re:[whine]...

Gmail's IMAP is broken for any messages in a non-american 7-bit character set, which is why they only enable it for people who declare their default language as EN_US.

I just tried one of my IMAP enabled accounts again, and accented characters (ISO-8859-1 and -14) either show up as a ?, are replaced by the 7 bit equivalent (é becomes i), or are missing. There is a lot of work to shoehorn real-world language support into the IMAP protocol. It's an area I've actively avoided, but could be why the rollout is only for people likely to receive only US-ASCII or CodePage=437.

the AC

To access it on your account...

Go to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2 [google.com]
Worked for me

firebug

This must be why I noticed a new message from Gmail advising me to disable firebug for gmail.google.com.

IMAP

I'd just be happy if my account would get the much touted IMAP feature.

I just want...

the ability to modify the appearance of labels on a per label basis. Would make it easier to sort at a glance.

"I just want"

I just want...

**shiver**

The three scariest words in IT. Actually... pretty much any business.

Will be faster?

From TFA : "an updated version of Gmail that's supposed to be faster than the current one"

If that is the case, I'm not even sure it will be noticeable, Gmail is already one of the fastest, most responsive web app (not to say web site) I know of...

Oh dear..

Still looks "bargain basement." They need to get a more professional look to it like the new "Live" Hotmail has because at the moment, it looks like something your mom would knock up as her first webpage.

Re:Oh dear..

It's called minimalism, and it's one of the many reasons why gmail is as good as it is.

What I REALLY want is...

It's great that they're improving the interface, and being able to access mail stored on Google's servers via IMAP is a nice addition. But what I REALLY want is to be able to store my mail on MY server, and access it via Google's awesome interface. Really, just use Google as an IMAP client to my mail server.

I know they offer to do that via POP, but I want the "live" copy of my mail to remain on my server, and for Google to access it via IMAP. I don't like the idea of all my mail being stored on someone else's server, especially when I'm not paying anything for it and therefore should have no real expectation of it still being there tomorrow.

Google for domains seems at first glance to do this, but your mail is actually still stored on Google's servers.

Has anyone ever heard of this sort of feature coming in the future?

But

is it compatible with Comcast ?

is 2.0 automatically secure?

Ie: Can I stop changing the URL to "https" after logging into my account?

Re:is 2.0 automatically secure?

Just use the Customize Google [customizegoogle.com] firefox plugin. It will automatically do that for you.

Excited and nervous...

I think that online contacts would be a big boon for me personally. I don't have a particularly sophisticaed cell-phone, and while it's great to have my contacts at home, I'd like to be able to access them while travelling. OTOH, between security breeches and corporate data-mining (Google wouldn't do this if they didn't think they made money off it), I'm hesitent to put so much information in one online location that everyone knows about. So I'm excited, but apprehensive... but not as much of either as I am over the medical directory.

Aren't I the Lucky One?

I noticed yesterday that two things had changed about my Gmail: the "Loading.." button is now in the middle of the screen, not top right as before, and ... <drum roll>

...the whole thing is much, much faster!

Now I know why.

Just start there

Just set your bookmark to https://mail.google.com/ [google.com] - you'll start & stay in SSL. I've been doing this for a really long time ( I can't remember when I even created the bookmarks I have in all my browsers to do exactly this. )

I wonder...

...if it passes HTML validation now?

Slow Down, Google

Wouldn't it make sense to finish rolling out IMAP across the board before another hefty upgrade?

Works much better on the iPod touch

It works much better on my iPod touch. For one I automatically get mobile view instead of defaulting to (an extremely slow to load) full html view, and now there is a "basic html" option, which works a lot faster than how the full html view worked before. The full html view is no longer available, though.

I'm a 1%'er - Change the tab title format back!

In a tab using Firefox, in the "older" version, I see "Gmail - Inbox", and, if I have new mail, a number indicating the new mail(s), like so:

"Inbox - Gmail(3)".

Very convenient! Love it!

However, with the "newer" interface, the tab title looks like so:

"Gmail - Inbox..."

which denotes the newer way this is handled:

"Gmail - Inbox - [e-mail]"

thus hiding from me whether or not I actually have any new email, and how many.

Google - please put the "older" way back into place, and I'll start using the "newer" interface. :)

Thanks!

Badly needed changes in Contacts feature

Contacts management in Gmail has always been horrendous. It always felt like a hack, an afterthought. Contacts seem so kludgy that I completeley gave up using it at a certain point....

I haven't tried it yet, but any change in Contacts is welcome.

Do they Support other then IE/Firefox now?

That's my burning question. Does the update now allow Konqueror to use the advanced interface? If not, then there's no benefit to me as yet.

First expirience

well, I've switched to English (US) and here it was (and IMAP too). On first glance it doesn't much differ from older version. But there are more things going on:

• Fully re-written Contact list management is a huge improvement, nice overview of all groups and individual entries. Easy three-panel navigation and editing.
• Added event invitation to Compose Mail; more check spelling options.
• ~50% increase in mailbox capacity (plans were reported ages ago, but it seem they roll it out with interface update)

It doesn't feel extremely fast, but I hope they can fix it. It seems like Google is on a right track. I only wish they extend these features to all localization. (e.g. in Hebrew there's no even chat :( )

I hope they add folders

And get off their microsoft trip of "we are right"

G* replacing my 'family' mail exchanger

"I for one welcome our new Email Overlords." "Gmail2.0b"+"Secure IMAP"+"GoogleGroups"+"Google Domain Hosting"= Family mailbox manager. I got 2.0 yesterday, and IMAP last week. Between the two, I immediately decided to separate myself from my Charter for business mail services. But as I looked, between Google Groups and Google MX domain hosting, I'm about 90% into deciding to move my 'lastname.org' and .net (some domain snarfer has my 'lastname.com'... the money grubbing scum!) to google, and use Gmail as the bassomatic of mail services for my blood relatives. The last 10% is purely confirmation... I'm playing with the setup right now. Migration will start next week. I manage about 150 of my relatives email forwarding for relative@'lastname'.org/net using a friends Linux system and a simple sendmail alias management file. Google, while a bit harder, looks like I can do that (using a 'forward' account with nicknames and filters... can't manage with a text file... sucks), PLUS offer direct emailboxes that provide IMAP and POP services to my extended family. This is a godsend for the 10 of us who are consultants 'in the field' and our current ISPs are (properly) not allowing external SMTP connections for sending mail from POP enabled accounts. And I can also manage my mom's mailbox, which is no small feat (76 year old women [with a political agenda] are the hardest of clients). And Google's IMAP and POP use encrypted transports... my Cable/ISP does not. With Metro WiFi coming in at 1/5th what I pay for cable+internet, plus google being a the central service that allows me to globify my email access, my email management... I see this a good thing.

Some changes I have noticed...

Well, first of all, my initial thought was "WTF happened to my Gmail?" because this change occurred the same day that I installed OS X 10.5 (and the new Safari). Now that I know the changes were made on Gmail's end, it makes more sense.

1) For a while yesterday, the new titlebar/tab of the main Gmail window said: Gmail - Inbox - [e-mail] (where username is my account name). Now it just says "Gmail". That's right, it doesn't update anymore to say "Inbox (1)" when I get a new mail.

2) Hovering over names in your message list gives a new style pop-up that shows the person's name, email address, and picture. Across the top of the pop-up are styled gradient buttons that say "Email", "Invite to Chat", and "More...". Clicking More will show options for "Recent Conversations" and "Show in Contact List: Auto, Always Show, Never Show, Blocked". Previously, hovering over names in the message list just showed you their email address. The new functionality seems similar to what the old version did when you hovered over your contact / chat list in the sidebar.

3) Chat now works in Safari. There are new (?) options for the chat list, including "Size of chat list: tiny, small, medium, large" and "Show in chat list: Most popular, all". (This may not be new, I never used G Chat in a browser because it didn't work on Safari before).

4) There are new actions to apply to messages. One is "Filter messages like these" the other is "mute". I'm not sure what mute does.

5) As the linked article says, Contacts management is now vastly different. It actually still looks a bit unfinished (or maybe it's just Safari's rendering, but I doubt it).

still no imap or 2.0 for me

:( I guess I'm not good enough to get such things.

Breaks Ad-Blocking Add-ons in FF

Whatever they did behind the scenes managed to break the ad blocking capabilities in both the Better Gmail and Customize Google Firefox add-ons. A minor annoyance -- but still... More info at: http://lifehacker.com/software/sneak-preview/gmail-speeds-up-improves-contacts-316673.php [lifehacker.com]

still has SEARCH but no SORT

And I still can't click on a column heading to sort by sender, date, size, etc. Search and labels are great, but they don't fulfill EVERY need. Why does gmail still lack such basic functionality that every other binary and web email client of the past decade has had?

For example: say I've got a few hundred messages and I want to find the few that have large attachments--ZIP files, a bunch of pictures, whatever. How do I do this with Gmail? Should I tag message with large attachments in a special way? If that's your suggestion, I'd like to point out that that is STUPID for two reasons:
1) the data is ALREADY THERE. Why should I manually tag messages? Aren't computers supposed to DO WORK FOR US?
2) that requires me to know ahead of time what ALL my needs will EVER be. What if I've been collecting this mail for years and then suddenly think "I'd like to find all these messages." But oops, I don't have my TIME MACHINE, so I can't go back and tag them all.

With anything else, it's just a click or two.

Nothing New

Looking at the screenshots, it basically looks like the standard un-attractive gmail that it always was. I think yahoo has the superior interface between hotmail and gmail, and yahoo comes the closest to mimicking the desktop experience for an online email application. I'm not denying that gmail doesn't have nice features like free pop3 and email aliases but the usability and design is rather lacking.

I have it...

And honestly, I can't tell too much difference on Firefox. I haven't tried MSIE (ugh) but I might....