Google has unveiled a new design for its Gmail apps for web, Android, and iOS. The update will roll out over the next few weeks, and it brings a new design with an emphasis on tags and tabs.
Gmail will automatically detect different types of messages and apply tags or labels to them. The auto-generated labels include Social notifications, Receipts and confirmations, and Promotions or deals.
When you open Gmail in a web browser, you’ll see a series of tabs across the top of the screen, and tapping one of those tabs will show you only messages in that category. Or you can just stay on the Primary tab to view everything in your inbox.
Or you can turn off the tabs to use the traditional view, or switch to Gmail’s Priority Inbox or another view by choosing the “Configure inbox” option from the Gmail settings menu.
The mobile version of Gmail for iOS and Android will also include support for the new tags and tabs. But on mobile devices you won’t see them at the top of the screen. Instead you can swipe from the left to bring up a menu which shows all of your labels.
Interestingly the new version of Gmail for Android requires Android 4.0 or later, so it looks like anyone stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread or earlier is out of luck.
Argh, once again Gingerbread misses out on the good Google apps. Keep, Calendar, now this.