Still using the Gmail app to check your email? There's a competing app now, and who better to compete with Gmail than the people who made Gmail? Inbox is what happens when you combine Gmail, Google Now, and a little touch of Material Design. But wait, there's more! If that wasn't enough Google for you in one sentence, there's one important caveat: it's only compatible with your Gmail account, for now.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. After all, the service is still invite-only, which has proven to be a rather (read: tremendously) successful marketing campaign for Google. Current users have each been awarded 3 invites to pass onto their friends, and they're in high demand. And if you don't have friends? Well...
The most interesting thing about Inbox is that it doesn't function as a traditional...well, inbox. It's not the familiar list of recent correspondence going from top to bottom. Instead, it's more of an interface that sorts your email into what Google hopes is a timely, pertinent to-do list. Your calendar events and Google Now reminders will show up, floating at the top when you need them. Inbox will automatically crawl your mailbox to find similar emails, sorting them into folders together. These "Bundles" can be composed of anything from receipts, to social media notifications and travel arrangements.
And for those of you that truly enjoy the feeling of an empty mailbox, Inbox is good at that too. The aforementioned bundles make it easy to archive huge collections of email -- Google calls it the "sweep" function. I was able to quickly archive massive backlogs of email in minutes, while preserving specific emails of importance. For those emails that you know you'll need again in the future, it's easy to snooze them, which allows them to resurface again when they're relevant, whether that's by time, date, or location.
One of the interface features you'll immediately notice is the "pin" toggle at the top right-of-center. This is the true to-do list aspect of Inbox. You can pin those emails or tasks of importance, keeping them in the pinned tab until you're ready to be done with them. This tab also includes your reminders set by Google Now.
My largest issue with Inbox is simply that I can't yet extend it to my work email, which, for task-related information, would be more helpful than my personal email account. However, the app is still in its infancy. We don't yet know what Google has planned for it. But if you're looking for a smarter way to handle your email -- or even just a pretty, Material Design alternative -- Inbox may be what you've been looking for.
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