Mailplane: brings Gmail to your Mac Desktop.

“Get Gmail out of the browser tab. And start saving time. “

Today I want to talk about an application that have saved my life over the past two months: Mailplane.

Gmail is surely one of the most used mail services in the world.
Since Google has launched this service 5 years ago , after a first (and typical) period of skepticism, Gmail has been able to reach a large number of users due    to its simple, clear and functional interface.
Not to mention the power and versatility of the available options .
Gmail, however,has been a regular “site” up to now: some people keep it in bookmarks, some keep an always open tab , but it’s still a site.

What would happen then if the power of Gmail were integrated into a desktop app?

Here comes Mailplane.

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Designing the Browser of the Future

[This is a total update & restyling of 7 months old post. Updated to December 2009]

I recently stumbled upon this post by Aza Raskin where he outlines the pros and cons of a brand new way of using Firefox: a vertical sidebar with multiple items in it. That post made me think a lot about this subject: how can we improve the browsers, what can designers and developers do to make browsers more usable and “modern”? I started searching for other similar resources and I found a couple of interesting mockups from GoSquared, IA and Cocoia. This post will showcase these mockups and provide some ideas about how can browsers evolve and get ready for “the future”.

Enjoy!

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