Thanks to those leaked screenshots that appeared on Tuesday, we’re pretty confident that Google Babel is no longer just a rumor, but a real product that’s patiently waiting to get its grand unveiling. And according to sources that are familiar with Google’s plans, it’s worth getting excited about.
They claim Babel aims to be “everything we have ever asked for in a unified messenger service,” with cross-platform syncing and a “first class iOS experience.”
Babel, a new chat service rumored to be on its way from Google, has been shown off in a bunch of leaked screenshots ahead of its official unveiling. The images reportedly come from a Google employee, and they show Babel running on a desktop. Not only do they confirm the service’s name, but also a number of its features.
Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of speculation suggesting that Google is in the process of releasing a unified chat application called Babel. Babel is rumored to have merged services such as Voice, Talk, and Google + Messenger. The new service is also rumored to be a cross-platform chat service, allowing users on iOS and Android to communicate with each other, within Babel itself. It’s like Google’s version of iMessage.
Today Google released a minor update to its Gmail app for Android. There’s not a lot in the update, but Google has added a handy feature that allows you to reply to and archive emails from the notifications menu. Simply tap on an unread email’s notification to reply or archive. The feature is pretty limited unfortunately, as you can only reply or archive when exactly one email is displayed in Android’s notifications menu. It doesn’t work with a list of unread emails, which seems pretty self-defeating.
“The new app also introduces faster search and better search suggestions so you can find your messages quickly online and offline,” according to Google.
After updating the Gmail app for iOS, Google has decided to bring many of the redesigned UI improvements over to its web and offline apps.
The Gmail web app for Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Kindle Fire was updated today with a redesigned UI to make it look more like the iOS app, after many Gmail users requested Google make the change.
