Inbox by Gmail and Gmail

I spent some time going back and forth between Inbox and Gmail before sticking with Inbox. The AI along with the look and feel make Gmail look extremely dated at this point.  How long before we start seeing Gmail merge in to Inbox?

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/inbox-by-gmail-find-answers-even-faster.html

Overhauling Google Hangouts

Its no surprise that everyone is looking to create their own messaging platform. People share their vacation pics, keep in touch with family & friends over group chats or video and pretty much anything else one could do on a social website like Facebook. Its no surprise Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion right from under Google's nose.

Google has had no shortage of messaging applications with the latest iteration being hangouts and rumors saying a new one is around the corner. I use Hangouts a lot second to only WhatsApp but when you compare it against the competition it is nowhere close to the feature set. The biggest plus point is that it is cross platform, it works on the web and syncs across any device that you might have (iOS or Android). it does video chats are reliably and the quality is great.

With that said here are some of my must haves/pain points that I hope Google addresses with Hangouts (ver Next) to bring it at par with everyone else:

Reliable Notifications : Figure out why notifications aren't sent reliably I have heard about and experienced cases where a message was sent on Hangouts and no notification was sent out, resulting in delays in response. While it does work well for a majority of the time, the couple of times that it fails really makes for a bad experience.

Make Adding People Easy: Adding people is again one of those basic tasks that a messenger should be able to do. How often have you added people on hangouts, sent an invite to let the other person add you and then be stuck in not knowing what happened ? This also ties back to the earlier point of no notifications, sometimes the invite to add a person just gets lost.

Lack of Search: This one is obvious. For a search company the app doesnt have a search feature enabled. The only way to search hangout messages is to use the Gmail app on a device or the web. For some odd reason Inbox by Gmail doesnt search hangout messages. Why this is still a problem is bizarre

Add Voice Notes, Send Video Messages : Not being able to send a video file or message is just something I now expect a messaging app to have. The fact that voice notes, video messages are still not part of Hangouts puzzles me.

I hope Google overhauls Hangouts soon or delivers a stellar new messaging app because right now ,compared to the options out there its not as compelling. There is absolutely no reason why at this point in Androids life cycle that hangouts isnt the "iMessage" of its ecosystem.

Android in 2014

Android has had a pretty important year in terms of Google starting to gain control of their OS, improving the developer environment with Android Studio and integration of Google's services deep into the OS that takes it up a notch from "stock" Android. Independent of the thoughts of whether this is good or bad for Android I want to take a stab at what the current year might hold for Android and what features I think Google should be focusing on the next version.

Camera software/hardware 

Its high time Google focuses on the camera software that comes on android. Its really hard for a beginner to see where the options are and what they are meant to do. With that said the hardware especially on the nexus devices has to improve. If you have to compete with the iPhone that is your biggest Achilles heel . while the current nexus isn't bad its no where as good. I do hope both off these are being looked at within GooglePlex . I mean Google+ is geared to share photos and videos and having damn good quality will really help in tipping the balance.

Multitasking
After using Windows 8 Modern UI on my desktop I find the "snap" application feature quite handy where you have two applications sitting side by side. Samsung I think is the only manufacturer that supports this on their line of devices but isn't available out of the box. This problem is surfaced (no pun intended) especially when I am using my tablet and want to look at two documents at the same time, or have a browser open while I'm watching a video etc. Now something along these lines is implemented in the YouTube app, where the video continues to play while you can do other things in the application so I'm guessing its only a matter of time where the capability is extended to anywhere in the OS. The other problem this can help address is where an app can "reboot" itself when not in context as you use the switcher and you lose everything you had written in the previous window. Its extremely frustrating how many times that has happened when doing such a simple task.


Control
We asked for it and we go it - in bits and pieces though. It started with Google Play Services in 2012 and extended further in 2013 with Google Experience Launcher . While the launcher is currently a Nexus 5 exclusive I'm quite confident it will be available in the Play Store very shortly (how they avoid pissing off Samsung, HTC etc in the process I don't know). With these two alone Google can add APIs services, changes to the look and feel while overstepping the phone manufacturers and the bigger speed bumps the carriers. The piece of the puzzle that's left to be addressed is updating the OS itself. This bit is easier said that done but can involve adding another layer between the skins and OS which make it easier to update. It is absolutely important they get this right so Google can reign in Android and prevent Samsung, LG from kicking them out of the picture completely.