Gmail Update
- Fariha Khan
- March 10, 2017
- 577
Offering great features and direct integration with Google’s other services such as Google Drive, Gmail is already a very powerful email client. But, now it has taken yet another step towards improvement. Today, the company announced that Gmail will add support for native add-ons.
While add-ons are not new for Gmail, as options like Boomerang have been able to bind into Gmail for some time now to boost its abilities. However, they are mostly powered by Google Chrome extensions. Google is altering that now by adding native support for adds-ons. The major difference is that instead of working in particular conditions only, the add-ons will work across the board, including on mobile apps on Android and iOS.
Read Also: Google acquires Kaggle, the web’s largest data science community
At the moment, this feature is focused on the enterprise user base only. However, it’s kicking off well with 3 great integrations ─ Intuit, Salesforce, and Prosperworks. In Google’s illustration, we can see a user write an email in Gmail, check contact info from Prosperworks, then set up and send an invoice in QuickBooks, without leaving the Gmail app.
According to Google these apps will be contextual. It means that they will just appear based on the message being sent. In addition, the firm is going to keep tight grip over this feature as it won’t be opening up a fair for developers to make and distribute add-ons, instead requiring firms to partner directly with Google to take benefit of the feature.