I'd like to stop using GMail, but there aren't worthy competitors (free, large, mostly reliable). My ISP (which is a major one) sucks at mail compared to Google.
If you fast-forward the evolution of the GMail interface it is like watching a drab green Jeep being turned into a chromed Jeepney. Complete with three tiers of honking-subsystems, 18kW worth of blinkenlights and a whole dash full of Virgin Mary bobble heads.
But mind you: the rims on the thing have a carefully selected hue of blue that was found among 39 others to be the one hue that gave the best ct rate on ads, so it isn't like the process was random or anything.
I have a very simple test for product usability: it must not confuse the hell out of my parents. Gmail makes my parents shot profanities at the computer. Test failed.
(Okay, there I probably managed to offend at least one ethnic group, one religion and I said something that is almost certainly ageist. Feel free to be offended while I shall busy myself not giving a fuck)
I waited 2 hours for an email yesterday only to find it hidden in a new "Promotions" tab instead of my inbox, which meant it didn't get pushed to my phone for some reason.
Man, waiting on Steam Guard to send me an email with a confirmation code got pretty hairy during some of the recent sales. When there's 15 minutes left to say 75% on a game I really want and the confirmation email gets sent to Promotions and therefore never seen... thanks Gmail.
Spam made me give up running my own mail server and start using Gmail.
Gmail is slowly making me give up email altogether.
I am not saying that email perfect and doesn't need innovation, but there should be greater sensitivity towards complexity and friction on Google's part. It is bad enough already that various functions are spread semi-randomly around in different buttons, drop-downs and links so you have to click around to get things done. There's really no need to try to get too clever about things.
I'd like more predictable behavior ("where did that email I looked at just 5 minutes ago end up?") and I would really like a better filtering system. They should have a look at the scoring system in Gnus and then think long and hard about how you build a sensible UI atop that kind of expressive power.
For the iOS gmail app you can choose to be notified for all new mail or "primary" only. I'm not sure about using a built-in client like the Mail app though.
FastMail isn't free, which is a plus in my book (clear business model not involving ads). It is comparable or better than Gmail in all the other ways that matter to me. See my post for more details.
They just tried recently.
I'd like to stop using GMail, but there aren't worthy competitors (free, large, mostly reliable). My ISP (which is a major one) sucks at mail compared to Google.