UPDATE 4:10 a.m. PDT April 1: It's up! Check out Gmail custom time to see how Google uses an "e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality."
It looks like we are getting a preview of Google's April Fools' joke for Gmail a little early. Google put the link in the screenshot above on everyone's Gmail page. As of right now, the link only takes you to a 404 error screen, but presumably Google will post its joke in the near future.
It seems strange that Google would push a dead link to all of the Gmail users out there, especially around three hours before April Fools' Day begins in Mountain View, Calif., so maybe it didn't mean to publish this just yet. Any speculation as to what Google has in store for us with "Gmail Custom Time"?
Gmail may be getting a long overdue user interface (UI) update soon. Gmail's interface has been essentially the same since it launched more than three years ago, so it should be interesting to see how the update looks.
According to Garett Rogers over at ZDNet, Google has been asking users to translate snippets from the new UI through their Google In Your Language program. The users were asked to translate the phrase, "Newer Version," for a service called Gmail UI.
There aren't any specifics on what exactly we will be seeing in the upgrade yet, but maybe we will be seeing the rumored offline functionality with Gears.
I guess this means that we can pretty much forget the possibility of Gmail ever dropping the beta tag.
Obviously, the lack of offline e-mail reading is the one huge downside to using Web mail. If Google implements this correctly, it could be a pretty big deal, but we will see if the functionality of a browser-based offline solution can compare to an actual desktop client.
It should be noted that Windows Live also currently has its Live Mail Desktop client available right now (one of my favorites, by the way). Whether Google goes browser- or client-based with its offline functionality, this is what it has to compete with.
Via TechCrunch
- prev
- 1
- next
