If you’re using an Android phone, it’s likely that you’re also plugged into Google’s ecosystem of online services, such as Google Drive, Calendar, and Gmail. And if that’s the case, the Android apps for those services are a pretty important part of your device. Android Police recently acquired a leaked copy of Gmail for Android 4.2, which finally adds pinch-to-zoom and includes a handy swipe feature for quickly archiving or deleting messages.
Pinch-to-zoom has been a highly requested feature for the Gmail app, so it’s good to see it being implemented. Zooming in and out looks nice and smooth in action, and if you watch closely you can see that the To: field and “show pictures” button remain the same size and slide cleanly in and out of view.
For the Inbox 0 obsessed, Gmail for Android 4.2’s new swipe feature will be a nice addition. Just like notifications in Ice Cream Sandwich and beyond, messages can be quickly dealt with by swiping them to the right. The swiping action can be configured to “always delete” or “archive and delete” — the latter setting smartly archives in the Inbox, deletes in All Mail or Sent, and removes a label in label-only views. If you’re worried about accidentally tossing aside an important message, you can also set swiping to do nothing. But even when archiving or deleting, a swiped message leaves behind an undo button for quickly calling it back.
Messages in the new Gmail app are also clearly tagged with color-coded labels, both in the list and when viewing a message. The new labels stand out much better than the colored-text used in previous versions of the app. The final and least exciting addition is that messages can now be marked as either phishing or spam.
Overall the new Gmail for Android looks more functional and design consistent with Android 4.0+. Despite an About page screenshot that clearly calls the app “version 4.2,” the testers at Android Police were running it on a 4.1 Galaxy Nexus, so hopefully it will be available for any 4.0+ device.
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