Is the end near for Google's popular email service Gmail? This has been the question posed by various users as search giant seems to pushing for a new email service.
Forbes has reported that Google has started sending notifications to users of its experimental email service Inbox that Inbox has replaced their Gmail account.
In particular, Inbox users get a pop-up notification saying "Thanks for trying Inbox! To make it easier we've updated Gmail to redirect you here." This entails that Inbox would replace Gmail as the default email service for Google account users as emails in the Gmail mailbox would be transitioned over to the Inbox service.
For users who are not comfortable with this feature, the good news though is that this is something users can opt to turn off, leaving the Gmail account as it is. 9to5Google clarifies also that this feature is unavailable, at the moment at least, to other users who did not sign up for the Inbox service.
Introduced in October 2014, Inbox (known officially, for now at least, as Inbox by Gmail) was originally introduced by Google as an app designed to improve email productivity as a companion app designed to run concurrently with Gmail.
With this latest move however, it seems to indicate that Google believes that it looks at Inbox as more than just a Gmail companion now as an email client of its own right. In addition, it has been reported as well that Google is quietly transitioning over to Inbox the Gmail mailboxes of some Inbox users.
Google has yet to issue any officially pronouncements about its plans for Inbox and Gmail but various speculations have been rife at this point. One outlet, Techworm, speculates Gmail may be gone by the end of 2016.
Forbes, however, believes the plan may be a bit more layered than such, saying that while Google is keen on improving its email service through the more advanced architecture Inbox is offering, it is also being careful of imposing changes as big and critical as its email service. As it now stands, Gmail currently has over 900 million users that Google would not wish to alienate in the event of such transition.
For the meantime at least, Gmail's future in the foreseeable future remains secure.
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