New Version of Gmail

The Google Operating System blog reports that many users have already received the new version of Gmail in their inboxes. If your Gmail has a link to the “Older Version” at the top, then you’re one of the lucky first ones to receive the update. Although I’m still very happy with the Gmail service, after reading through the new features, I am now eagerly awaiting the upgrade.

The new version loads emails faster, since the messages are prefetched when you initially load Gmail. The contact manager, which is probably my least favorite thing about the current version, has also been improved with inline search, better options to delete contacts or add them to a group, plus some tweaks to the contact fields themselves. Outlook users will be happy to know that contacts can now be exported to vCard format. You can also export the contacts in a group and print your address list to view offline. And if you can’t wait for these features, you can preview the new contact manager here: http://mail.google.com/mail/contacts/ui/ContactManager?js=RAW. If I could only clean up my address book to remove the automatically saved, useless email addresses like “noreply@…”, “support@…”, etc., I would be completely happy.

Another new feature of Gmail 2.0 is the ability to create filters based on the current message. Handy, since that’s when I usually think to create one. Picasa Web Albums have been integrated, making it easy to pick a picture from one of your albums as a contact’s photo.

However, I can’t wait to see how well the new “hovering” feature works - now, when you hover over a contact name, instead of just their picture, you can view and access the recent conversations you’ve had with that person with only one click.

I want new Gmail!

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