Google launches new app which works with both Google Now and Gmail

The inbox app running on iOS

Google announced a brand new app for Gmail Wednesday morning, called Inbox. No, you're not imagining things; there is a Gmail app already. No, Inbox doesn't replace it; it's just another option for how to view your Gmail on your smartphone.

So what problem — and there are, of course, many problems with email — does Inbox solve? Google answered that, albeit not very successfully, with one of those product launch videos that is practically a parody of itself. We see people skateboarding, running along beaches, getting into taxis, taking selfies. Inbox was introduced as "an inbox that works for you." (So is Google saying regular Gmail doesn't work for you?) Features mentioned, include the ability to add reminders, bundle similar messages, and highlight important messages, apparently so you can get back to your skateboards, beaches, taxis and selfies.

A more cynical soul might point out that there have been an awful lot of hipper, younger apps doing the rounds, such as Mailbox and Boxer, and Gmail might want to blunt their popularity with a similar app of its own — especially one with a social network-like look and feel that might give Google some of the cool it was pursuing with Google+. Also Inbox is invite-only, a strategy that has worked well for Google in the past.

But let's take Inbox at face value. I was able to download the app earlier Wednesday — no, before you ask, I do not have invites — and have been taking it for a trial run ever since. The first major problem is that it won't work with my Mashable email, or any other enterprise email account built on Google apps. The Gmail app does do this. Strike one against Inbox. Though this is the kind of thing easily fixed with a future update, it should have been part and parcel of Inbox from the start. Why should Google Apps users, who are actually paying for the service, be second-class citizens?

Luckily, I'm very active on my personal Gmail account, too. So let's take a closer look at those features Google was proud to highlight:

Reminders

This feature got left out of a lot of the Inbox discussion Wednesday, but in my mind, it's actually the strongest aspect of the app. I've long felt that email and To Do lists need to merge; heck, if only Gmail would let me reorder my starred messages, it would be my To Do list.

In Inbox, Reminders and emails are treated the same. You swipe to the left to "snooze" them, so they'll pop up at another time of your choosing, and swipe to the right to dismiss them. This allows you to be wonderfully granular about your email time management. Don't need to answer that email from your boss until tomorrow morning? Snooze it and forget it.

Unfortunately, Inbox is only kind of synced with your regular Gmail. Dismiss an email in Inbox, and it's automatically archived in your desktop (i.e. web-based) Gmail: Sweet. Snooze an email, and it remains exactly where it was on your desktop: Not so good. And Reminders don't show up at all on the desktop. In this age of cloud computing, what is the worth of a To Do list that only really works on one of your gadgets?

Bundling

Google makes much of its ability to bundle similar kinds of messages — social notifications, travel reminders, financial emails and so on. You can create your own bundles, which work according to the rules you set down. But the only bundle I really noticed in Inbox was that it bundled all my high priority emails and low priority emails together. That meant I had to click through to see — well, pretty much everything. There were no emails from today that were not placed in the low priority bundle, which makes a mockery of the whole bundling concept.

You can unbundle each bundle, but what you're left with then is just a regular old inbox, with each email slightly more spaced out, and images shown in-line. Personally, I prefer seeing more emails on one screen than Inbox offers. Your mileage may vary.

Highlighting

You can pin an email, which is Inbox's equivalent of starring a message in Gmail. There's a pin symbol on top of the page that will take you to all your pinned emails, so you can see the important stuff at once. Great idea — but again, it suffers from its lack of integration with regular Gmail. Pinned emails do not translate into starred emails, and vice versa.

In theory, then, Inbox is an app with a lot of neat ideas. But it seems to be suffering an identity crisis. Is it Gmail, or isn't it? If it is, it needs to integrate more fully with the desktop product. If not, Google needs to introduce a connected product for the desktop, because not all of us spend all our email time on our smartphones.

If you do, then you might just want an invite to this party. If not, feel free to hang back while Google works out Inbox's identity crisis.