Came to post this as well. Inbox is a great product, but it seems to have been forgotten - probably because most of the users still use gmail, since getting "normies" to switch to anything is near impossible without social pressure being some contributor to the switch. Plus, Gmail still has a ton of features that were never ported over, which will also prevent some advanced users who rely on these features consistently, from switching.

Inbox is in a weird place - the features we want in Gmail are in Inbox. The features we want in Inbox are in Gmail. The mails are in the same place. The web clients are separate codebases. I can't imagine all the talented people working at either team are happy with this situation given the way their contributions end up not coming to us users because of this separation. If anyone here is on either team, or has some insight into this, I'd really like to understand what the thinking is behind this stuff. The same sort of goes for Allo, Hangouts, etc. What gives, Google?

I think you're missing the point of Inbox. It's not supposed to replace Gmail, not now and not ever. It's an additional way of using Gmail, hence why its full name is actually "Inbox by Gmail".

Inbox is an attempt to make Gmail easier to use for the average user who has simple needs, so all the "power user" features you want aren't supposed to be in Inbox. If your needs are complicated, you can just use Gmail. Inbox doesn't really introduce any new features that Gmail cannot do, it simply reframes Gmail features in a different UI and workflow. For example, Inbox's "done" action is available in Gmail, but in Gmail it's called "archive". Same with Inbox's "bundles": they're just called "tabs" in Gmail.

As an Inbox user, I'm pretty happy with the state of Inbox. I don't need extra features get my stuff done in Inbox. Porting every Gmail feature to Inbox is missing the point.

Does Gmail have email snoozing? It didn't when I switched to Inbox and I wouldn't want to use an email client without it now.

One way to achieve snoozing in any email client is to forward (and archive) the email to [email protected] (or [email protected] etc, the syntax is pretty complete and flexible). They will send you back the email at the specified time and date, so it ends up back in your inbox. No GUI but pretty efficient in practice.

Exactly this. This is THE advanced feature I need.

I both agree and disagree. It's certainly a reframing of Gmail in a more light format, but it has one killer feature (which is also the only reason I'm currently using it over Gmail) – email snoozing. To get that in Gmail you need a label-based plugin (desktop only) or a third-party app (to get it on mobile as well) afaik.

> I don't need extra features get my stuff done in Inbox.

I only need signatures in my non-gmail account. This is almost the only reason I switch to gmail now, when I have to send an email to someone outside my institution... it's very frustrating that they implemented signatures but only for gmail accounts.

Inbox actually has a signature feature in the "Settings" panel. It doesn't provide any formatting options, but you can copy-paste your signature from the Gmail signature settings, and it'll keep the formatting and any images you have.

I'd like to see the search in Inbox improved, and get hangouts history. Beyond that I'm pretty happy with it.

I really hope Google won't abandon Inbox and continue developing it, I'd really hate to go back to Gmail.

You could move to Spark (if Mac user)

I've never tried it. I'm moving between Mac and Linux so I need a web based client.

I am in the same boat - Linux for Desktop and MBP for Laptop. Web based clients are essential.

I personally use the snooze feature (time or location-based) quite at lot at work, along with the reminder feature (which also allow to add a note). I forget much less often to take action on an email in a timely manner because of it.

I think the problem is that 10% of Gmail users think Inbox is awesome and the rest think it's godawful for breaking 'feature X' they loved. Where feature X isn't one feature but a thousand tiny things. I think with Add-ons, they're trying to extend Gmail in a way that won't offend anyone married to the current UI.

Came to post this question also. I switched to Inbox when it came out and never looked back. The automated linking of travel emails into a cluster pertaining to the same trip, for example, is extremely useful, and after pinning anything that needs attention, clearing your inbox with the sweep button is amazing. Some clarity from google on the future of these two products would be nice.

Yeah, inbox seems vastly superior to me, with the exception that it runs like absolute shit on Firefox which I can only interpret as intentional, considering I find FF faster than Chrome for a lot of other stuff these days.

Some JS features are faster on Chrome and some on Firefox. Additionally, while Firefox is killing it on CSS and some layout stuff with Stylo and WebRender, JS is the area where Firefox isn't dominating.

It's trivial to explain the speed difference without assuming it intentional. In Inbox's case, sparse arrays were an issue initially[0] (and like many of the perf issues, it's been fixed[1].)

There will always be perf trade-offs. If you find any where they chose X over Y when X and Y are equal on Chrome, and X is faster than Y on Firefox, then let's talk about anti-competitive behavior.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

I specifically installed Firefox 57 so that I could try Inbox there, because as you point out, on Firefox 56 it's very slow (especially the initial load).

On Firefox 57 with that new Quantum CSS, I found Inbox to be amazingly fast (I'd say even faster than Chrome on my yoga pro 2 - except for the right pane of Google Hangouts which takes a while to load still)

I completely agree, I found inbox a little while ago and it's amazing. It's cut my time spent on emails by a factor of 10, and I love the inbuilt reminder system. There are a few minor annoyances but the massive time savings are well worth dealing with them.

Something others haven't mentioned here when discussing the gmail vs inbox situation is the trio of products, Keep + Cal + Inbox, that make for an absolutely _awesome_ reminder workflow/experience.

IMHO if there's one thing missing from Gmail right now is the integration of Reminders from the other products. It doesn't really fit with the gmail workflow though, so I guess it's just another example of the same 'gmail should be more inboxy/inbox should be more gmaily' argument.