Agree that its a really big deal. Mobile support is huge.
We actually built the inboxsdk that you are referring to. There are a ton of extensions built using it and >10M end users using apps built with it. We've worked really hard to make sure apps built with the SDK are compatible. If you have any examples of 2 extensions not playing nice, def let me know.
I also hope this will improve the privacy/permissioning story for gmail add-ons. I believe currently any extension has full access to the page meaning they could read all your emails. For some of them that's obviously required as part of the functionality but it would be great to have more fine-grained permissions for things that don't need full access.
Looks like it will from the screenshots (https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HeFnmVgMiJ8/WMDL3f4TQgI/AAAAAAAAB...) - each app will have it's own icon and hooks into emails/threads. I too have built a few gmail integrated apps and this will be super nice and convenient.
Sorry to be the one that has negative feelings about it.
Email is one of those rare concepts that is really hard to change or enhance. I can easily see Google abandoning this feature in 5 years.
People need email service just because of the email function, nothing more than that.
It's concept clearly has some limitations (attachment sizes, layout inconsistencies and so on) but it also doesn't have any deal-breaker problems.
Introducing external services integration to email sounds like taking a huge risk. How people manage their invoices, to-do lists and other stuff is changing faster than ever. These add-ons will require active development all the time to keep themselves up-to-date.
As a developer, I wouldn't risk investing in this feature.
An API that might go away in 5 years is much much better than hacking the DOM. I wouldn't base a business around either, but I can think of some fun and useful add-ons I could build
I've been panned on here before for saying this, but I really feel everyone should leave email alone. As a spec its already so immensely complicated and embedded that any features you add will only be picked up by a tiny percentage of providers.
I had the same reaction as you at the headline, but clicking the article and seeing intuit and salesforce made me rethink slightly. It would indeed be handy to be able to toss a receipt email into quickbooks or a new name on cc into a salesforce contact from webmail. I'm sure there are some other decent uses of the concept.
Inbox was nifty at first but it positively crawls now. Any input action takes several seconds, at best, to process on a fast machine, sometimes much more. Loading Inbox is about 30s. It's maybe 20x slower than straight gmail classic. Plugins will just slow it more?
12 seconds to load fully here (that's 11.90 seconds too long - can't they store some stuff in local storage or...?) - and of course it's not really usable until it's fully loaded. You could start trying to type but it'll not do anything, or stuff will move.
Opening the 'Updates', er, 'section' with 2 emails in it took 2 seconds, which is silly.
I love the flow of Inbox but I'm seriously considering going back to a local client. Are there any good ones left these days? I liked mutt, but using it with an IMAP mailbox made it a bit clunky. I just need to work /fast/, without crashes, without spam, and preferably with vi keys and programmabil... never mind the last two, I can live with the speed, stability and spam-free parts.
Strange, my experience with Inbox is nowhere near that bad. It is noticeably slower than Gmail classic, but load time is ~2s and actions like search take a fraction of a second. This is all on a 2012 MBP.
If you look at the examples, they all look like adding extra functionality to your inbox, not to the content of the emails you send.
So it doesn't sound like "I'll send you this email that you can only access if you have gmail AND this specific add-ons", more like "when you open an email, the add-on shows relevant information from your internal CRM system as well as canned responses".
This is awesome. I developed Chrome/Firefox browser extensions that connected Gmail attachments with cloud storage in the past, and hacking through Gmail's DOM always threw any SLA we could provide out the window.
It's even better that this will run on Android and iOS as well, which truly makes all the "Gmail extensions" from developers such as myself production-ready.
And just as I completed a WebExtension based integration. Awesome! /s
Seriously though: I was considering using Gmail contextual gadgets, but it seems google has just dumped those, left the tooling and admin panels not to work and the documentation to rot at least 3 revisions earlier.
Looking into it was a complete waste of time, and seeing this now, I'm going to guess soon to be deprecated.
I wonder how long until Google repeats the history with this one. I'm honestly not sure I'd dare jump on another Google tech like this.
(disc: googler)
How could you make an open standard for this? Do you mean an open standard for apps-in-email? Or an open standard for doing things in gmail?
Seems like a lot of posters here not catching on, this seems to be a parity thing with the new cross-platform, HTML-based MS Office Add-ins which are pretty sweet and have been out for a while. Unusual for Microsoft to be out in front of this since usually they like to follow examples.
I still like Google's Inbox. Which seems like a forgotten and abandoned child sometimes.... But it works great for me. Makes it easier to wage through the tons of stupid mails.
Talking about Mobile version here. The web version is not good.
Did I understand right that add-ons also work in the iOS app? How are they implementing that, especially since Apple recently said you're not allowed to load custom code on the fly? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant, but I have no app dev experience whatsoever so I have no clue how any of this stuff is done at the moment.
My understanding is that on the fly code loading is still allowed if (1) the loaded code is written in, or compiled to, JavaScript, and (2) no native hooks it can call allow it to call arbitrary native functions by name, which was being misused to access hidden/proprietary APIs that could break during updates. Which makes sense if Apple wants to guarantee "our updates won't get blamed for broken apps as long as our public APIs are backwards compatible."
I'll probably setup a Slack channel for those interested in talking more about this. I'm not part of the program yet, but very interested in it, and I'd be happy to meet you if you have similar interests. btwelchy_gmail
A little off topic, but anyone else find those example gifs exceptionally fluid and intuitive? I really liked the way the blue dot indicated movement, clicks, etc. A very elegant solution for demoing a touch-based system.
I found it a little disingenuous - in reality, half that screen is going to be taken up by an on-screen keyboard, and typing is nothing like that quick; that little blue dot would be moving from key to key to key to key.
Eh honestly, I think posting 3MB of images is a bit antithetical to their goals of making everything faster. Gifs are basically the worst format possible for this.
I read that Google is trying to engage developers and allowing them to market their add-ons via the G Suite market place. Has anyone had any financial success via developing these type of add-ons?
I doubt much direct revenue would come this route. But, if you sell CRM software, or trouble ticket software, the integration might swing a potential buyer.
This happens very regularly for me, Google's own internal links are terribly broken.
I'm on an android device, using chrome. I'm clicking a link on a Google site, a call to action to sign up.
I get a page that's not a signup page but another overview, and has a broken image in.
Usually it's broken links on help pages but this is just useless. How do I sign up? I want to build on your platform! Please stop making the first interactions I have with you broken!
[+] [-] timvdalen|9 years ago|reply
Having the power to do this with Google's consent _and_ have it be available on mobile devices is huge.
I hope this solves the problem of conflicting Gmail extensions, I currently just have too many installed that don't place nice together.
[1]: https://gmail-message-id-finder.co/ [2]: https://www.inboxsdk.com/
[+] [-] alooPotato|9 years ago|reply
We actually built the inboxsdk that you are referring to. There are a ton of extensions built using it and >10M end users using apps built with it. We've worked really hard to make sure apps built with the SDK are compatible. If you have any examples of 2 extensions not playing nice, def let me know.
[+] [-] dcosson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ecaroth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whizzkid|9 years ago|reply
Email is one of those rare concepts that is really hard to change or enhance. I can easily see Google abandoning this feature in 5 years.
People need email service just because of the email function, nothing more than that.
It's concept clearly has some limitations (attachment sizes, layout inconsistencies and so on) but it also doesn't have any deal-breaker problems.
Introducing external services integration to email sounds like taking a huge risk. How people manage their invoices, to-do lists and other stuff is changing faster than ever. These add-ons will require active development all the time to keep themselves up-to-date.
As a developer, I wouldn't risk investing in this feature.
[+] [-] eli|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] math0ne|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CPLX|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phailhaus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grinich|9 years ago|reply
https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail
(I work at Nylas.)
[+] [-] libertymcateer|9 years ago|reply
Are you developing or working on anything related to email?
[+] [-] d4l3k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|9 years ago|reply
They limit how much of the email body you can pull via the API (first 1000 characters only), and don't allow access to the attachments at all.
https://developers.google.com/gmail/contextual_gadgets#using...
If the same reasons they did this (whatever it is/was) for contextual gadgets still apply, it wouldn't be useful for encryption.
[+] [-] libertymcateer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|9 years ago|reply
https://github.com/google/end-to-end
[+] [-] oh_sigh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aspett|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imglorp|9 years ago|reply
Inbox was nifty at first but it positively crawls now. Any input action takes several seconds, at best, to process on a fast machine, sometimes much more. Loading Inbox is about 30s. It's maybe 20x slower than straight gmail classic. Plugins will just slow it more?
[+] [-] rikkus|9 years ago|reply
Opening the 'Updates', er, 'section' with 2 emails in it took 2 seconds, which is silly.
I love the flow of Inbox but I'm seriously considering going back to a local client. Are there any good ones left these days? I liked mutt, but using it with an IMAP mailbox made it a bit clunky. I just need to work /fast/, without crashes, without spam, and preferably with vi keys and programmabil... never mind the last two, I can live with the speed, stability and spam-free parts.
[+] [-] grmarcil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askvictor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmisra|9 years ago|reply
There is a huge difference between:
Google is enhancing e-mail in a way that makes e-mail better for everybody.
and
Google is migrating GMail to be another walled garden collaborative workflow tool that happens to have a very good e-mail client build in.
[+] [-] ucaetano|9 years ago|reply
So it doesn't sound like "I'll send you this email that you can only access if you have gmail AND this specific add-ons", more like "when you open an email, the add-on shows relevant information from your internal CRM system as well as canned responses".
[+] [-] ino|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alooPotato|9 years ago|reply
edit: if you want it now, we offer that functionality in gmail and inbox soon: www.streak.com
[+] [-] Keyframe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narsil|9 years ago|reply
It's even better that this will run on Android and iOS as well, which truly makes all the "Gmail extensions" from developers such as myself production-ready.
[+] [-] josteink|9 years ago|reply
Seriously though: I was considering using Gmail contextual gadgets, but it seems google has just dumped those, left the tooling and admin panels not to work and the documentation to rot at least 3 revisions earlier.
Looking into it was a complete waste of time, and seeing this now, I'm going to guess soon to be deprecated.
I wonder how long until Google repeats the history with this one. I'm honestly not sure I'd dare jump on another Google tech like this.
[+] [-] amelius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshuamorton|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin1975|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siva_narayanan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzbzq|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shp0ngle|9 years ago|reply
Talking about Mobile version here. The web version is not good.
[+] [-] euyyn|9 years ago|reply
Isn't it first to get features like Smart Reply?
[+] [-] neotek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btown|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mercer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thetrumanshow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gameshot911|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yitchelle|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fiatjaf|9 years ago|reply
Some personal dashboard from where you could receive notifications of all sorts and perform actions on them.
[+] [-] IanCal|9 years ago|reply
I'm on an android device, using chrome. I'm clicking a link on a Google site, a call to action to sign up.
I get a page that's not a signup page but another overview, and has a broken image in.
Usually it's broken links on help pages but this is just useless. How do I sign up? I want to build on your platform! Please stop making the first interactions I have with you broken!
[+] [-] soheil|9 years ago|reply
- this reminds of the ancient Labs feature in Gmail where you could add stuff like favicon that shows unread email count
- is there going to be a Gmail plugin store?
[+] [-] tyingq|9 years ago|reply
It was tied to the Google Apps marketplace as you suggest.
This sounds like that idea extended such that it works on mobile. And the interface looks cleaner.
Also, FWIW, contextual gadgets is dusty, unmaintained, docs out of date, docs have broken links, etc. Basically abandonware.
[+] [-] fiatjaf|9 years ago|reply
But hey, Gmail Labs is still there!