Composing a new message should be a lot more RESTful and first class, not a modal popup. I understand the on-the-fly desire but not at the cost of manipulation.
Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
211–220 of 247 posts
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Youtube: * Buffering was nerfed/broken some time ago. I can no longer watch 720p+ videos on youtube at all. * Changing video quality now has a long and unavoidable delay, and often fails outright. * Google are evidently uneasy about the profile name that I signed up with, and have been repeatedly nudging me to change it. I don't know how to reassure them about my choice. * Advertising. Everywhere.
YouTube keeps insisting I merge my legacy YouTube account with Google+. Then YouTube insisted I use two-factor authentication (to watch cat videos) and made me choose between giving them my phone number so they could send me a text message or giving them my phone number so they could robo-call me.
I think the last time they bugged me about it there was no choice to opt out (because I have some uploaded videos on it IIRC). I clicked around and somehow I now have a new G+ account which is different than the one linked to my Google account which is linked to my Youtube account.
Brillant.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#213Really, anxiety? Use a native/local mail client and I'm sure it will solve your problems.
The problem with that suggestion is that the old Gmail used to have the best UX out of all email clients—web or desktop. I preferred it over Outlook or Thunderbird. Now I'm begrudgingly using it unti something better comes along and hoping Google doesn't acqui-hire them out of existence.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#214I could live with the new Compose... its the hidden/floating "Formatting Options" that really grinds my gears.
A lot of people complain about the window size, but I agree. It's really the hidden options and extra clicks for me. Everything that used to be easy is now harder. And things that used to be hard are easier.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#215I logged into an old Hotmail account the other day.
The new interface they are using is massively better than Google's, I fell in love straight away, it's actually quite lovely and very fluid to use.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a reason for this pattern. When I complained to a friend at Google about the new GMail compose, he said that what was driving it was that Larry wanted a beautiful, consistent look throughout all Google's products. That sort of motivation leads to design disasters. The various Google products may have been inconsistent, but each of their designs was the product of long evolution. Steve Jobs could probably have…
The new Maps interface isn't driven by the idea of making it "consistent" with GMail, it's driven by the same idea that Google Search's homepage used to represent -- simplicity. The Map is the UI. A single search box. You type in POIs, the Map is constructed around the search results. The old Google Maps (the tile based one) was based on the idea of a multi-pane map with gadgets and a side panel of 10 ranked search r…
There's still some important stuff missing in the redesign though, like My Places. You can reach it through the settings menu in the top-right corner, but it just redirects to the old layout. I seriously hope they're not considering removing this feature...
Another issue: there doesn't seem to be a way to go to your current location, which is especially annoying because Google Maps decides to show me the US at the beginning (I'm not in the US).
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Re: maps, you can revert to "classic" by clicking on the gear.
I tried this, but it keeps forgeting the choice to use the classic maps and I always have to go to the options and pick it again. It's not such a big deal, but yeah, it's annoying.
When you get back to the classic interface there's a yellow message at the top asking if you want to make the change permanent.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#218Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#219Lately I've had a persistent feeling of annoyance with several Google products. Each annoyance is small enough to tolerate individually, but in aggregate it seems to me that Google has really lost something in the attention-to-detail department; this kind of persistent annoyance was the same thing that led me to Google from other services years ago. Two examples: - maps: new interface is so terrible that I am activel…
The new Google Maps on Android is disappointing. I can appreciate the clean, minimal interface, but with it are gone: 1. Zoom buttons. Now I have to hold the phone in one hand while pinch in and out with another, instead of a tap with one finger. 2. Offline maps. I suppose it's part of the "cloud strategy". 3. Secondary streets at common zoom level. Now I have to really zoom in to see them. A tad out and they're gone…
It's not intuitive at all, but for zooming, you can double-tap-and-hold, then move your finger up and down to zoom in and out (or is it out and in?). That way you don't need two hands to zoom.
Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose
#220Doesn't gmail still offer imap? Use a real mail client, not a web page. Much more fulfilling in almost every way. I like emacs, because I like to be able to write emails using the same editor I use for everything else. But that's a preference. There are many good mail clients to choose from.
Exactly. A "startup CEO" for whom email is his most important tool and he's baffled by a change to his client? Switch clients.