Gmail for Android gets unified inbox, Google Drive now lets you manage photos

Late last year, Google introduced support for multiple email providers in Gmail for Android, welcoming users of Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail and other such services to manage all their accounts using its app. There are plenty of folks who are not just Gmail or Google Apps users, after all. However, the app wasn't properly designed to handle all the extra accounts that users would set up.

The problem? Users had to switch between accounts every time they received new emails or wanted to reply to a message. Now, Google is finally correcting this by giving Gmail for Android a much-needed unified inbox.

A unified inbox can be incredibly useful when you're dealing with multiple email accounts, as it lets you manage all your latest emails from a single location. No more switching between accounts. At the time of writing this article the latest version of Gmail for Android isn't yet available on my Google Nexus 7 -- it's said to be rolling out over the next couple of days.

Other than the new unified inbox, Gmail for Android also adds threaded conversations for accounts other than Gmail or Google Apps, which adds to the consistency of the app. An improved auto-complete for search, more responsive animations, and larger attachment previews complete the list of changes.

On top of introducing an update to Gmail for Android, Google also updated its Drive app for Android, iOS and the web. The biggest change is the Google Photos folder, which is a collection of all your Google+ photos and videos.

It is being introduced to make it easier for users to manage their photos and videos from the cloud storage locker, a feature which rival services have had long before Drive. I'm surprised that it took Google so long to offer it.