Articles about Gmail

Microsoft's Scroogled campaign, an attack on rival Google, is still in full-swing, despite taking turns between entertaining and ridiculous. My colleague Wayne Williams described it as "sad and embarrassing", but I am not so sure I would go quite that far, though neither will I defend the software maker in this battle.

Now Microsoft launches its latest attack -- again going after Gmail. This time around, the company goes after the new tabbed design in Gmail, though it focuses on treating the email service on the whole as a trojan horse for advertising -- not a new claim, only a new video for an old accusation. The video, of course, ends with the plea to use Outlook.com.

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In late-January, Google revealed that, after July 31, Windows Phone handsets will be unable to establish new Exchange ActiveSync connections to Gmail. The controversial move would leave said devices without the ability to sync calendar and contacts entries with the search giant's consumer-oriented email service, after the passing of the deadline. However, that is no longer the case, as Google just gave Windows Phone users another reprieve.

"We've reached an agreement to extend support for new Windows Phone connections to the Google Sync service through December 31, 2013", says Google in a statement that was issued to me earlier today. The agreement, as you can probably tell, was made with Microsoft, likely to give the software giant and its partners more time to deploy CalDAV and CardDAV support, which is needed for Gmail calendar and contacts sync, in Windows Phone.

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Starting tomorrow, most Windows Phone 8 devices will be unable to sync Gmail calendar and contacts entries though new connections, as Google officially drops support for Exchange ActiveSync in its consumer-oriented email service. The search giant initially revealed that EAS would be ditched after January 30, but decided to give Microsoft a six-month reprieve, which ends today, to give the company time to implement CalDAV and CardDAV (the two protocols required for calendar and contacts sync, respectively) support in its tiled smartphone operating system, before finally pulling the plug.

New handsets, like the Nokia Lumia 925 and Lumia 1020, already ship with the Windows Phone 8 version (known as GDR2) which adds CalDAV and CardDAV support. However, the necessary update has yet to be rolled-out to the majority of older smartphones, like my Lumia 920 for instance (according to user reports, it is available on the unbranded HTC Windows Phone 8X), a delay which potentially affects most Windows Phone 8 users, if device market share is of any indication.

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Ever since Edward Snowden leaked what seems to be the mother lode of the decade, the internet has been fervently abuzz with speculation about Prism. The (aptly named) program was setup by the United States NSA (National Security Agency) to work hand in hand with internet giants to cull over mountains of data related to users of numerous services from Facebook to Gmail to Hotmail. Whether or not this information is accurately being used for its intended purpose -- thwarting terror attacks -- is still up for debate. But one thing we do know for sure is not only the type of data being plucked, but more importantly the overarching power this data yields.

It seems the crafty folks at MIT haven't been sitting back and watching this drama unfold. They've gone ahead and launched a representative cloud tool called Immersion that is very accurate in its portrayal of the inner workings of your entire digital life (or at least, the one contained to your Gmail account). National Journal's Brian Fung first covered this astonishing project, and it was since picked up similarly by eWeek.

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Migrating data between two Google accounts is not the easiest of tasks -- there's no simple switch that one can flip. Folks have to use various tools provided by the search giant to move a Google+ profile with circles, backup important emails and Drive content or transfer the Voice number and data. Based on my experience, it takes quite a bit of time too.

This makes it especially problematic for business users who wish to seamlessly migrate data from a standard Google account to Google Apps. Backupify wants to address this issue with the latest update for its Migrator tool, released today, which now introduces support for Google to Google Apps (and vice-versa) migrations.

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Yesterday my colleague Mark Wilson wrote a scathing article on Gmail’s new tabs feature. In it he complained about the total lack of customization options, the wonky sorting, and most damning of all -- the way it’s no longer possible to tell at a glance exactly how many new messages you have.

This morning, in checking my email -- with the tabs active -- I found another reason to hate the latest addition to the webmail service, and it’s likely the reason that Google even introduced tabs in the first place -- advertising messages in your inbox.

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Like many Gmail users, I greeted the news of the introduction of tabs to the interface with a degree of anticipation -- now it was just a matter of waiting for the feature to roll out so I could try it for myself. Earlier today I was randomly signed out of my Gmail account, and after signing back in and checking the settings menus, I could see that tabs were now available to me. Excitement was short-lived, however; it quickly became apparent that this new feature is a disaster.

On the face of it, there's a lot to be said in favor of adding tabs to one's inbox. The idea is that emails that match certain criteria are automatically sorted so your inbox is easier to manage. I have an enormous number of filters configured that sort and label messages but the prospect of having a series of tabs to access certain types of mail was definitely appealing.

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A move to Gmail frequently results in temporary disorientation. The labels feature takes getting used to, especially for those arriving from Outlook, which allows for the creation of folders. Now Google aims to clean things up a bit and help customers be better organized with the load of email received daily.

Itamar Gilad, Product Manager at Google, announces that "on the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when".

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On Thursday, following user demand, Mailbox released an update for its iOS mail app that introduces support for iPads. The service, which delivers more than 100 million messages each day, was previously available as an iPhone-only affair.

Mailbox boasts a better organized and easier to manage inbox, allowing its users to take advantage of swipe gestures to archive or trash messages. Similar to alarm clocks, the app also offers the option to snooze emails in order to receive them at a later date in the inbox.

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After nearly two months of using Microsoft’s services almost exclusively, I made the painful decision to switch back to Google for most of my web needs. I say "most" because I’m still using, and enjoying, Outlook.com.

My decision to stick with Microsoft’s webmail service seems well founded, as the company is adding more features all the time. It introduced Skype support two weeks ago, and from today is rolling out the ability to directly message your Gmail-using contacts. Or "friends stuck on Gmail" as Microsoft amusingly phrases it.

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Yesterday (yeah, yeah, I'm late), Google released a stunning new version of Gmail for iPad and iPhone. I tried to write this story several times on May 6, but the newsroom was short-staffed, keeping me extra busy. Vacations, bank holiday in United Kingdom and Orthodox Easter Monday just about emptied BetaNews. So, please, pardon this belated story about the great Google escape.

What a wild one, too. Control-freak Apple uses Safari to keep developers like Google in check. Especially such a rival that invades iOS with a remarkably rich set of apps tightly tied to myriad web services. So Gmail's sudden liberation is quite surprising. Links now go to installed Google apps -- gasp, Chrome, Maps and YouTube -- rather than opening Safari. Chrome linkage really is a shocker, and all the more so with Google kissing WebKit to the wind in favor of its own browsing engine. Expect it in the Chrome stable channel soon.

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If Google does not already rule your internet world, then it is still aiming to do so. Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs -- the company aims to offer you everything. Now it looks at integrating more of these features to make things a bit easier for customers, adding better Calendar options right into the email app.

"If you do a lot of scheduling over email, it's now a little bit easier to create events directly from your Gmail. Now available: dates and times within emails are lightly underlined: click them to schedule that conference call or lunch date without ever leaving Gmail" says Google product manager Boris Khvostichenko.

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What do you do when you need to check your email? Fire up Outlook or Thunderbird? Launch Chrome and head over to the Gmail website? Having to do this throughout the day is a waste of time, and it’s a waste of time that Toasts&Tiles for Gmail aims to address. As you’d probably guess from the name, this is a Gmail client that includes support for toast notifications as well as live tiles.

With the app running constantly in the background, you will be notified whenever a new email hits your inbox. There’s no need to keep manually checking, breaking away from what you’re doing and losing your train of thought -- if there’s something you need to know about, the app will let you know.

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Google may be a company of many personalities -- browser and operating system developer, connected-device manufacturer, fiber-optic Internet servicer, search giant and social network, among many others. But the core business is still about one thing: Advertising, as calendar first quarter results, delivered today after the closing bell, show.

Revenue rose 31 percent to $$13.97 billion, year over year; operating income, excluding Traffic Acquisition Costs, was $3.48 billion, up from $3.39 billion. Net income climbed to 3.35 billion up from $2.89 billion. That's $9.94 earnings per share, including costs associated with discontinued operations.

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As someone who switched from Hotmail to Gmail in 2004 and then never looked back, moving to Outlook.com has been quite a weird experience (setting it up was fun in its own right). Some people hate Gmail’s interface, but if you’re used to it, using anything else seems odd.

That said, I’ve adapted to Outlook.com pretty quickly. It feels a bit like going back in time, using an interface similar to the ones I used in the past, but it doesn’t feel dated -- quite the opposite actually -- and I’ve grown to really like it in the short period of time I’ve been using it as my email service.

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