TMCnews Featured Article

Gmail users might have noticed something new when trying to send e-mail lately.

Instead of loading a new page for sending e-mail, they’ve found the screen for it popping up on their inbox, allowing them to write multiple e-mails and check the ones they’ve received almost simultaneously.

While this may be a small change, it is a good one. With this new feature, one can look through his or her old e-mails to find important information without having to save and close the one they’re working on or open a new screen – which may be a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Not only that, but it lets people write multiple messages, if need be, or minimize the messages as drafts to be finished later.

“How many times have you been writing an e-mail and had to reference something in another message?” asked Phil Sharp (News - Alert), product manager at Google. “Saving a draft, opening the old e-mail, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a new window, just like chats (only larger).”

For added points, there’s the addition of profile pictures in the autocomplete bar. This way, if you start typing in someone’s e-mail address, you can quickly tell the difference between John Barber’s jbarber@theoreticaladdress.com and Joe Barbara’s jbarbara@anotherfakeaddress.com by their pictures.

The usual e-mail features are still available, such as attachments, formats and other options, now accessible from the bottom of the message window.

For those who don’t like the change, the new compose experience is optional for now, giving them time to get used to it.

Not only that, but there are more features Google (News - Alert) says will be coming soon. This includes event invitations, emoticons, labels for outgoing messages, and more.

These added conveniences, albeit minor, can make all the difference when choosing an e-mail service, so a little goes a long way. In this regard, Google’s improved Gmail is a change for the better.