Inbox by Gmail Now Available For All iOS Users

Google has made its revolutionary Inbox app, available for all iOS users. The switch comes after the preliminary launch, that promoted only an invitation based access for using and testing out Gmail‘s new application. This new piece of software is intended to help you better organize your mail conversations, highlighting the important stuff and notifying you more efficiently.

Inbox for iOS is an app that complements Gmail for iPhone and iPad. One of the most important features provided by Inbox are the interactive Notifications. This new mail software alerts you whenever a new letter lands in and offers instant previews from lock screen display, to banner slide-ins when the iOS device is unlocked. Sound alerts are also available, but can be silenced if you’re not a fan of them.

Download and Install Inbox by Gmail
As mentioned above, the big news is that Inbox is now available for free for everyone. The app was initially released on September 5th 2014. The invitation based acceptance allowed developers a controlled spread out for testing. However, now you can download and install Inbox from the App Store. Do note, that the app works only with Google accounts. When you open it for the first time, you’re asked to log-in or add an account from the Gmail app. As with Gmail, this new software supports multiple Google account additions.

Inbox for iOS Features
After you set up the desired Gmail accounts you can start to use Inbox. Mind that your actions in Inbox will automatically sync with the Gmail app and vice-versa. This means that, if you’re notified of a new incoming mail and you read it via Inbox, it will be instantly also marked as read in Gmail. If you allow me a comparison, the iOS Gmail and Inbox apps have a similar relationship as does the iPhone and its paired Apple Watch, meaning that Inbox is an accessory of Google’s traditional mail application.
Further on, you have a detailed list of new features provided by Inbox:
– Snooze: If an email just landed but you want to handle it later on, swipe left to snooze it. Choose when you want to be reminded about the message again, from a predefined list, or by picking your specific desired date and time. Inbox even provides you the option to be reminded, when you reach a specific location (GPS access has to be handled to the app, in this case);
– Highlights: The important content of an email, like media attachments and other essential info are visible without the user needing to open the actual message.
– Pins: If you have important conversations you can pin them and view all tracked threads by switching the Pinned knob, available in the top-right corner of the home screen view;
– Reminders: If I already mentioned timed alerts, yes you can add reminders to your Inbox and make sure that you don’t forget about any task;
– Bundles: feature automatically groups your messages depending on category. You can handle them all at once, and even swipe them away with a single gesture. Bundled categories include: Purchases, Finance, Social, Promos and more.

Inbox Interactive Notification Options
This is perhaps one of the features, that I find the most useful when it comes to the new Inbox app. The ability to check and filter mails directly from the notification banner, or lock screen alert is a real time saver. Swipe-left on a notification to Snooze or Done the messages. The same interactive options are available if you swipe-down on an unfolding Inbox banner alert, when the iPhone is unlocked. You can also tap the “x” to close the alert without performing any action on the incoming mail. Done-ed mails are sent to the Gmail Archive folder. You can search and recover them, if you ever need to.
Tip: You can tweak Inbox notification setup from your iOS Settings app. Browse to Notifications -> Inbox and decide if you wish alerts displayed on Lock Screen, Badge App Icon, Notification Center and much more.

Inbox Brings Gmail Notifications To Apple Watch
With the help of Inbox you can push alerts from your iPhone to the paired Apple Watch, whenever the iOS device is locked. This way you can take a glimpse at the message’s content and even label the mail as Done, if it’s not interesting anymore and you wish to send it to Archive. Else, you can tap Dismiss and close the notification, allowing yourself the option to check the mail later on.
Because Gmail and Inbox don’t support Apple Watch integration just yet, you have to grab your iPhone to read the full content.