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Gmail Refreshed with New Design, Swipe to Archive or Delete, ‘Undo Send,’ and Faster Search

Until today, Gmail hadn’t been updated since January 2016. That’s a long time between updates for a major Google service. Meanwhile, Inbox, Google’s other email client, has been repeatedly updated throughout 2016. That led me and others to wonder whether Google was abandoning its more traditional email client for Inbox’s cutting-edge features. Although Gmail appears to be on a slower update cycle than Inbox, today Gmail received a handful of solid new features and a design update that breathes fresh life into the app.

Gmail’s new design brings it much closer to the UI of its Android cousin and other Google apps available on iOS. The design is colorful, uncluttered, and easy to read with a compose button right where you expect it in a Google app.

Google also added the ability to quickly archive or delete messages with left or right swipe gesture from your inbox. By default, Gmail is set to archive when you swipe on a message, but you can switch it to delete messages in settings on a per-account basis.

Gmail’s new ‘Undo Send’ feature gives you about five seconds to tap an Undo button in the lower right hand corner of the screen to retrieve a message that you didn’t mean to send. It would be nice to be able to adjust the length of the delay before a message is sent, but I suspect five seconds is enough in most circumstances.

In addition, Google says it has made email search even faster. The speed and accuracy of Gmail’s search is the primary reason I keep Gmail installed. I don’t use Gmail regularly enough to comment whether the new search is faster, but in my limited testing search results appeared almost instantly on a good WiFi connection, even when retrieving months-old email.

I’m glad to see Google pushing Gmail forward. With this update, it fits better aesthetically with the rest of Google’s iOS apps and adds features that keep Gmail on par with other iOS email clients. I only wish that Gmail also included a unified inbox option instead of requiring me to switch among multiple accounts.

Gmail is available on the App Store as a free download.

How Slack Is Using Emoji→

After introducing emoji reactions last year, our own Slack team saw a dip in the total number of messages sent. With hundreds of members communicating across a couple thousand channels, it was a welcome change. Before emoji reactions, messages begot more messages: replies, questions, acknowledgment. In a word, noise.

Fascinating look at how Slack is using emoji inside the company. It’s sort of amazing how versatile emoji can be when used in work communications with a bit of creativity. I’m also going to implement this idea for our own Slack:

Speaking of 18F, check out their blog post about using emoji reactions for knowledge management. They tag all “evergreen” content found in channels with :evergreen_tree:, and use a search query like the one mentioned above to find new messages worth codifying in their handbooks. At Slack, we do something similar, where anyone can tag a message with :notebook: to indicate it might be worth adding to the company’s internal documentation.

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Game Day: Alone

Every week thousands of new games are released on the App Store. As I set up my new iPhone 7 Plus recently and scrolled through the Purchased tab in the App Store, I realized that there’s another ‘new’ category - new to me. I download a lot of apps, including games, and sometimes they get lost in the shuffle. That’s exactly what happened to Alone, a fantastic endless runner by Laser Dog released about two years ago. Alone may not be new to you, but even if you’ve played it before, Alone is worth rediscovering.

Alone, adds a sci-fi twist to the endless runner genre. You’re a spacecraft navigating thorough collapsing caves. Rocks fall as you maneuver your ship through the tunnels. The design of the game echoes its name. Your ship feels small and isolated in the harsh space environment. You can take a couple of small hits from debris, but more than that, or a collision with a wall, and it’s game over. Make it far enough in a world and you’ll be rewarded by unlocking new environments to explore.

Navigate your tiny spaceship through an unforgivingly bleak environment.

Navigate your tiny spaceship through an unforgivingly bleak environment.

Alone requires concentration and fast reflexes. Even though I’m not great at twitchy arcade games, I’ve had a lot of fun playing Alone. The focus it requires makes it easy to get absorbed in the game.

As you progress, Alone’s pace increases and additional obstacles, like rockets, are introduced, making for an even more harrowing journey. The controls are sensitive, which requires focus and concentration to make it very far. By default, dragging your finger down on the screen makes your ship rise and dragging it up does the opposite. If this feels counterintuitive, you can reverse the controls in the settings. The sensitivity of the controls would be more frustrating, but by building in the ability to survive small collisions, Alone has struck a good balance that makes it fun without being discouraging.

The fast pace of Alone and the relentless electronic beat of the soundtrack are a great combination. Endless runner games are by their nature somewhat one-dimensional, but Alone sets itself apart with its design and unique gameplay. Whether you’ve played Alone before or not, take it for a spin this weekend. Some of the best iOS games are hidden beneath a mountain of new releases.

Alone is available on the App Store for $1.99.

How Apple’s Apps Will Use the Touch Bar→

Good overview by Benjamin Mayo of all the Apple apps that will have Touch Bar integration on the new MacBook Pros. Apple certainly had the time to build extensive support for the new API while waiting for the new Pros to ship.

That’s a total of 23 Apple apps that live in the /Applications root folder with Touch Bar support as of the current macOS 10.12.1 build. The following apps have no Touch Bar integration as far as I could tell; App Store, Automator, Chess, Dashboard, Dictionary, DVD Player, Font Book, Image Capture, Photo Booth and Stickies. I expect all of Apple’s apps to flesh out their Touch Bar integrations in future macOS update.

See also: Steve Troughton-Smith’s utility to grab a screenshot of the currently active app in the Touch Bar.

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Why I’m Considering Bear as a Notes App Replacement

As I wrote in an issue of MacStories Weekly (exclusive to Club MacStories members), I recently moved my Club-related notes from the Apple Notes app to Trello. Because Club MacStories is a collaborative effort, it made sense to use Trello’s project management features to let the entire MacStories team see my notes. However, moving those notes to Trello considerably decreased my usage of Apple Notes, which left me wondering if it was time to consider an alternative app for my personal note-taking needs.

I praised Apple Notes numerous times since its relaunch on iOS 9. I believe Notes and Safari are Apple’s two best iOS apps, and I recommend Notes to anyone planning a switch from Evernote or OneNote. Notes is surprisingly advanced and fast; its iCloud sync is reliable; it even received support for collaboration in iOS 10. I’ve used Notes as my only note-taking app for over a year now.

After moving my most frequently accessed notes to Trello1, I looked at what was left in Notes, and I realized that I wanted to see if a different app could fill the gaps Apple didn’t address. For everything Notes gets right, there are several limitations that have required me to change how I work: Notes has no native Markdown support, no automation features, and its organization system based on folders could use a revamp. I accepted Notes’ shortcomings because I had no other choice; could a new app lure me away from it through the promise of features Apple would never ship?

My transition from Notes to Trello couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve been keeping an eye on Bear, a new note-taking app developed by Italian studio Shiny Frog, for the entire summer. Bear piqued my interest right away: like Notes, it was based on CloudKit sync, but Bear also strived to augment the experience for “online writers” thanks to Markdown, automation features, themes, tags, cross-reference links, and more.

As Bear betas went out to testers, I told myself I wouldn’t need it because I was perfectly fine in Notes. But when I noticed that I was using Notes less frequently anyway, I took the plunge, moved my remaining personal notes to Bear, and put the app on my Home screen. This happened two weeks ago.

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Connected, Episode 115: Out in the Real World→

This week: Stephen’s new MacBook Pro, Federico’s new Amazon Echo Dot and the future of everything.

Myke was away on Connected this week, so Stephen and I talked about pro users and their Macs, plus what we’re doing with Alexa and the Amazon Echo. You can listen here.

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Twelve South Introduces Fermata Wireless Headphone Charging Stand→

Mac and iOS accessory maker Twelve South debuted a headphone charging stand, which serves to display your high-end wireless headphones while they charge. The stand has a leather covered pedestal to hang your wireless headphones on and is available in black and silver. The Fermata can be plugged into a wall outlet, saving you from charging your headphones via a port on your Mac and charges via a micro-USB cable that is hidden in the post when not in use. The micro-USB connector is reversible, which should make it easy to plug in your headphones.

The Fermata is available for purchase from Twelve South’s website for $79.99 and ships internationally.

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New Apple Ad: Dive→

Apple introduced a quirky iPhone 7 ad on YouTube today called Dive. The ad features an older gentleman lounging by a swimming pool at what looks like a resort. As La Virgen De La Macarena begins to play, he turns up the volume, props his iPhone 7 up in a puddle of water on a table, and heads to the diving platforms. He hands his sunglasses to a girl as he climbs to the highest platform, pauses to glance down at a young woman sunbathing by the pool, and executes a perfect dive that splashes his iPhone. The spot ends with the tag line ‘stereo speakers on iPhone 7’ followed by, ‘practically magic.’ The clothing and slightly washed out colors of the video, which highlights the iPhone 7’s stereo speakers and water resistance, give it a vaguely old-fashioned, eccentric feel.

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