Hands-on with the new Gmail for Android (and iOS)

[Karlston]

 

Google is pushing a big redesign to the mobile Gmail app on Android and iOS. The update was announced yesterday, and after spending some time with the new app, we're going to comb through the finer details and see what has changed between New Gmail and Old Gmail.

 

For now the release is only out on Android, but like the old Gmail design, it should look identical on iOS. If you're on Android, you want Gmail version 9.x (the old design is Gmail 8). If the Play Store isn't serving you the update and you're into sideloading, APKMirror has a safe download. The iOS version is still wending its way through the App Store approval process and should be out sometime this week.

 

The new design is a good match for the new desktop Gmail design that came out in April, along with all the other apps using the "Google Material Theme" design language. Everything is really white—an homage to the Google homepage—and everything uses rounded corners. The horizontal line dividers are gone, leaving nothing but white space to separate your messages. Control iconography is changed to Google's new outline style, and while message text remains in the Roboto font, everything else now uses Product Sans (the same typeface as the Google logo).

 

When you first enter the inbox, it's hard to miss the death of the big red header at the top. Instead of a red action bar, the new Gmail design uses a white search bar across the top of the app. Search is certainly promoted more with this new design, but getting to it isn't any faster. When it was a magnifying glass icon on the old Gmail design, it was a tap away; with the huge search bar, it's still a tap away. The search bar does look better than the mostly blank action bar that was used before.

 

The side navigation panel is still a tap away via the left "hamburger" button inside the search bar, or you can still swipe in from the side to open it. The one new feature in the header, then, is the new account switcher, which exists on the right side of the search bar as your profile picture. Tapping on it pops up a window with all of your other accounts. Assuming you have unique profile pictures across your accounts, the profile picture display makes it easy to tell which account you're using from the Inbox view—something that wasn't possible on the old version of Gmail.

 

Like most other Google apps, there's no permanent "Gmail" logo on the main screen anywhere. Sometimes, though, the search bar help text will go away and a fun "Gmail" logo animation will play inside the search bar. This seems to only happen when you open the inbox, and even then it only happens once every few minutes. It's a fun little touch when you catch it happening.

 

The floating round compose button returns to the bottom-right corner of the screen, but instead of a pen icon on a red background, it's now a multi-coloured plus icon on a white background. The pen screamed "Compose a new email," but the new plus icon seems like a less-obvious indicator. Desktop Gmail sticks a loud, obvious "Compose" text label next to the plus icon by default, which helps a lot.

 

Like the new desktop Gmail, by default the new mobile Gmail is very upfront about attachments to your messages. Instead of the usual paper clip icon, direct links to the first few attachments will appear in the inbox, right under the message preview text.

Inbox densities: Gmail's one new feature

 

Google has a few introductory pop-ups for users opening the new Gmail for the first time. After the welcome message, you'll be presented with a setting for Gmail's single new feature: Inbox densities. Just like on the desktop version of Gmail, you can now switch between "Default," "Comfortable," and "Compact" display modes for your inbox messages.

 

The "Default" view is the biggest and shows contact icons, a line of preview text, and a row for the new attachment buttons. "Comfortable" kills the attachment row, and "Compact" additionally removes the preview text line and contact pictures. This can make a big difference in terms of number of messages on-screen. On a OnePlus 6, you'll get about 13 messages on-screen in "Compact" mode, while "Default" mode will show six complete messages per screen if every message has attachments.

 

The rest of the UI is pretty much what you would expect. Gmail is getting a new coat of white paint, but mostly everything is where you would expect it to be. It's kind of disappointing to still see all the controls in the same spots. Along with this new Material Design rollout, Google has experimented with templates that put all the controls at the bottom of the phone. As devices continually get bigger and taller, bottom controls seem like a really good idea. For now it's the same old Gmail, just white.

 

And speaking of the proliferation of lightness, this new Gmail doesn't have a dark mode. Lots of other Google apps are getting a dark mode, and it's expected to be a focus of Android Q. Hopefully Gmail gets a dark mode soon.

 

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Source: Hands-on with the new Gmail for Android (and iOS) (Ars Technica)