Gmail’s got a beautiful new look and you can try it NOW

Only minutes after we posted user mockups of what a redesigned Gmail might look like, Google has released a preview of what the real new Gmail will look like, including themes that you can test out today.

It’s eerie how accurate the earlier mockups were. These screenshots show a Gmail that has adopted the Google+ minimalist, orange and gray aesthetic, though it’s not an identical aesthetic — the buttons for instance are larger.

Simply go to Gmail Settings, click over to the Themes tab and select “Preview” or “Preview (Dense)” as your theme to try this yourself. Google has provided two themes because the end result is an elastic responsive design that shifts its information density to accomodate your screen size, but for now, you need to pick based on the density you prefer.

The Preview theme, which spreads information out over more space and so must be the theme designed for larger screens, spreads things out a little too much. The eye doesn’t naturally scan over emails in the inbox because the whitespace between each message is a little too big for information that is provided in only one-line increments. The spacing works for Google+ because the items are generally a paragraph or more in length.

If you flick over the Preview (Dense) you get something that’s akin to the current layout with a new skin on it, and it works. It’s still easy to scan through your inbox and pleasant to both look at and use. The only complaint I have is that the advertisements seem more prominent than before — but I’m sure ad blindness will kick in soon enough!

I’m hearing some reports that there are little spacing issues with either theme on particularly small screens, and some strangeness occurring when the window is resized from very small to wider.

Of course, this is a preview, and it’s “step one of a monster series of upgrades over the next few months” according to Jason Cornwell, who is a Googler working on the project.

After the limited launch of Google+ and updates to the designs of other Google products, Gmail had started to look rather dated (heck, I’d thought so before the new Google look started popping up), so this is a welcome development — one I’ll be adopting today.

Microsoft's Windows Phone Updates Arriving for Samsung Devices

Microsoft is resuming Windows Phone updates for Samsung Omnia 7 and Focus smartphones, even as it prepares for its larger "Mango" update later in 2011. 

 

Microsoft has resumed updates for Samsung Omnia 7 and Focus smartphones running its Windows Phone software.

“Today we restarted updating Omnia 7 phones,” Eric Hautala, general manager for Microsoft’s Customer Experience Engineering unit, wrote in a May 17 posting on The Windows Blog. “The restart is happening in phases. Go to the Zune software and manually check for an update.” 

 

For those who didn’t receive an update May 17, “look again next Tuesday when we plan to deliver updates to additional Omnia 7 customers.” Those owners of a particular Focus variant will not receive their update, however, and Microsoft is offering no definitive arrival date. 

Earlier this year, Microsoft experienced some turbulence in pushing its first updates to Windows Phone. A small February update, meant to pave the way for future updates, “bricked” or stalled a small subset of devices. The larger “NoDo” update, which introduced cut-and-paste functionality along with faster app loading and other features, also hit some delays. 

 

Samsung smartphones in particular seemed to have trouble receiving and installing Microsoft’s updates, forcing the company to halt the push. Indeed, some of those troubles continue even as Microsoft resumes the updates. 

 

“A small number of people who’ve already installed the March ‘copy and paste’ update on their Omnia 7 might have trouble installing 7392,” Hautala wrote, “but Samsung today published a new tool designed to fix this.” A link to that new Samsung tool is available via a support article posted on a Microsoft Webpage. 

 

Even as Microsoft cleans up issues related to its first two updates, news has started to percolate through the blogosphere about the next Windows Phone upgrade, codenamed “Mango,” due for release later in 2011. 

 

Mango includes productivity enhancements such as the ability to pin email folders to the smartphone’s start screen, search a server for email items no longer stored on the device, force emails to obey IT administrators’ policies, and threading email replies into a “conversation view.” Users will also have the capability to save and share Office documents via Office 365 and Windows Live Skydrive. 

 

In addition to those tweaks aimed at businesses, Mango will introduce more consumer-centric features such as multitasking, Internet Explorer 9, and a turn-by-turn navigation feature with voice guidance. 

 

New data from The Nielsen Company had 6 percent of consumers indicating they wanted a Windows Mobile/Windows Phone smartphone as their next device, compared with 31 percent for Android, 30 percent for Apple’s iOS and 11 percent for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry. Microsoft likely hopes that updates and new features to its mobile platform will draw in consumers and businesses who would otherwise go for those rival smartphones; but given the lack of definitive consumer-sales numbers, it remains to be seen how much of an impact Windows Phone is having in the marketplace.