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Gmail’s use of the “Conversation” causes confusion with its Filters system. If you are reading a message, aka “part of a conversation thread” then you can use the drop down menu “More Actions” => which shows a link “Filter Messages Like These.” It’s a good feature to have—if it worked properly. But the filter page that appears after you click this option does not pertain to the specific message (example, “sender”) but rather, to the FIRST message in the thread. And often times the first message is by YOU (the user).
Here’s how it plays out; I compose a message to ten people asking if they want to join a new fake band. I get a few positive responses. I read the response from “Jerry.” I decide to Filter all messages from him so that I can Label as “fake band.” I click “Filter Messages Like These.” Instead of populating the “From” address with Jerry’s, the filter populates it with my email address.
This is all the more problematic because for some reason, Gmail does not allow you to create filters based on Contact Groups, neither from the Contact Group edit panel nor from within Filters New panel. The situation is completely ridiculous because in most other places, Google is VERY on-top of granting access to your Contact List. I’ve written about this before, specifically the consequence of having to edit a filter per email address (which changes sometimes) rather than with a Person / Contact (or Group).
Oh Google! I have grown convinced that you alone are the most high Internet company, and will always do right. And yet I occasionally confront silly user interface glitches that seemingly contradict this vision of you as Ultra Righteous. Please please see if you can find someone who can take a break from counting money and insert some pragmatism into your designs.
Google is making waves in the software industry, pissing off Apple and teasing Microsoft with plans to build an operating system, Chrome, based on its browser of that name. But by skipping the ‘interim’ step of making desktop software it is missing a big and present opportunity. The new model in software is "syncing" in which several platforms–phone, web site, desktop – run "applications" (apps) that synchronize content / data. When given a choice, the browser is usually the last resort for the user. She would rather run an app than open up Safari (et al) and go to a URL. Likewise, it’s easy to open a program on the desktop and enjoy a ‘rich’ experience.
Microsoft understands this, and is able to offer Windows Live Mail, which syncs Email and Contacts and Calendar from the desktop with the Hotmail / ‘Live’ web programs. Google understands this, to the extent of mobile devices and the web (by the way, it licenses the sync technology from MS). But on the desktop, Google only offers..er, Google Desktop. It requires ‘Google Gears’ if you want to access certain apps off-line. In either case, the apps (Calendar, Mail) run through the browser. The apps are ‘read-only’ when off-line: you cannot create a new message or event. Strange.
Google’s offering is the result of a way of thinking that seemed plausible 2 years ago (before Apps and Adobe AIR took off), but now seems silly: that the web means the browser. And it thinks a user accesses a desktop version only when off-line, rather than the other benefits of specialization and richness. Being online does not only mean browsers, but, web browsing does mean being online in people’s mind. People hate using a browser off-line. It’s counter-intuitive. Sure, there’s a lot one can do in a browser as Firefox shows. And there’s a lot more that can be done, as the Chrome OS will no doubt prove. But today, in Dec. 2009, I just want to access my Gmail on the desktop. The best way to do that is with Windows Live mail program (which supports Gmail). But the best overall experience for mail / contacts / calendar syncing is with Windows Live (Hotmail) itself. So I am switching to Live.
Maybe soon Google will at least support an Adobe AIR developer who can make a sweet Google AIR app. Is there anyone out there?
Google Voice is terrific; it’s now run by Google–of course it’s totally awesome. Well, not totally.. As envisioned by its creators, the Grand Central team, the service was to be a single place to view all sorts of messages: voice, texts, emails (even though email addresses were of the format “phone number @grandcentral…..” ).
Google Voice is a fine offering which among other things, offers texting. Perhaps “Voice” isn’the best name for this product, but that is not the subject today. I’m worried about icons. In Gmail, the Rich Text Editor offers dozens of colorful emoticons and other icons.
Why can’t at least some of these be available when sending a text?
Even a basic GoPhone has an “Insert Smiley” feature. But this might cost money. SMS is “Short Message Service,” a protocol which apparently does not include graphics. Perhaps Google, so in touch with information if not consumers, could manage the expectations of the latter by providing an explanation of what SMS can and cannot do.
Google Calendar is terrific. But a major problem I’ve found is a Time Zone is set not to the Event, but to the Google Calendar User. Thus, any event that user creates, is set to his user setting timezone.
So, if I live in Los Angeles but schedule an 8pm Monday London event, it will show up as a 3am Tuesday event to Londoners. As long as my user setting is PST, I have to do this: set the event for 1pm. In Google Calendar, a user can have more than one calendar. Each calendar can have its own setting for Time Zone.
Thus, I thought a bad but working solution would be to temporarily set a calendar to time zone London. But, that setting just dictates the Display of the time, not the absolute date time start. The absolute is still based on the user’s time zone.
The issue is all the more confounding because the Calendar gives much weight to an Event’s Location field. It wants specific information so that it can map it and offer directions or other services. Yet it’s not interested in the time?
Here’s how it’s published, in London Time:
The solution is: Google should let viewers / subscribers to a calendar set a timezone for “Viewing”– thus all events are translated into a time relative to that user’s view. In that case, if I’m looking at a 5pm New York event as a Californian (PST) I see it as 2pm.
The absolute time should be defined by the manager per event. When entering the time there should simply be a field to enter the time zone, which Google could ‘predict’ once location is entered (that would also require an alteration in the Form inputs so that Location is entered before Time).
As it is, Google Calendar cannot be accurately deployed by a manager of an entity that crosses time zones (sports teams, performers) or has subscribers across multiple time zones.
Oh Google! Yours is such an awesome, awesome company, and yet snags like these make me think you might spend just a wee bit too much time drinking your own Kool-Aid and not actually engineering for humans.
