The secret genius of Inbox is the feeling of action
10
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.

For those who missed my hands-on with the app, here's the breakdown: Inbox is a new Gmail app, created by the Gmail team itself. It is currently invite-only (and, sorry, I've given out all of my invites), and aims to rethink how people use email. Inbox essentially envisions your email as a big do-to list, so the major changes are options to "pin" a message that is important, "snooze" to make an email bounce back to you if you can't deal with it right away, and surface key information from within an email like flight info, package tracking, and more. All of these subtle changes are aimed at one thing: making you more productive (or at least making you feel like your actions have meaning).
I won't claim to use Inbox to its fullest. As mentioned, I haven't created a single reminder; and, on top of that, I've yet to use the "snooze" feature either. The thing is that I'm just not obsessive enough to need to get to "inbox zero", nor do I even really believe that to be a worthy goal. If I did, I would see that sun icon above take over my Inbox; but, I don't need to get to zero, I just need to get to five or ten. Even before getting Inbox, my aim was to clear out anything that wasn't necessary, and only leave the items that I needed to deal with. Of course, that's exactly what Inbox is designed for. The way that Inbox pushes you towards that goal is with three key features - pin, snooze, and done. The amazing part of the app is that the only one of those three items that is new is the "snooze" feature.
Although, even that isn't quite accurate. The "snooze" feature allows you to basically have a message disappear from your inbox, and bounce back to you as a new message after a certain period, at a specific time, or when you reach a specific location. This is a new feature in terms of what you would get directly from Google, but it could have been found in the Gmail app Mailbox, or with Boomerang, a Gmail extension. So, it's not completely a new feature, but likely new for most users. The interesting thing is that the rest of Inbox is exactly the same as Gmail, when you get right down to it.
The space to work
When I say that aside from "snooze", Inbox is exactly the same as Gmail, I mean just that. Not counting "snooze", here are the differences between Inbox and Gmail:
- Design
- Nomenclature
End of list. Sure, those are two relatively broad categories, but even once you dive in, there are no new features added by renaming things, and only a couple of new features added with the design.

This last change alone has been enough to alter my usage quite drastically, because even these subtle changes are all designed to spur more action; or, at least, they make you feel like you are taking more action. Unless I needed to dive deep into my message history, I was never one to use Gmail search all that often. I have about forty tags in my Gmail that would filter my messages as they hit my inbox; so, once I was done with something, I just hit the archive button in Gmail, and the message was filed away where I could easily find it. This meant that if I knew what I needed was relatively new, I'd just go into that tag and get the info that I needed.
Sounds like action
Possibly the bigger change-that-isn't-really-a-change is with how features are named in Inbox. This is the secret genius of the app: Done, Pin, and Bundles are not new features at all. The first two features are simply Archive and Star, renamed, and Bundles is a new name for message categories. That's it. But, the difference those simple changes make is quite astounding, because the change in nomenclature changes how the app feels and how you feel about it, because it both makes it clearer what will happen, and why you should be using those options. Everything becomes more actionable.

When you combine that with the power of Bundles, suddenly anyone can get to (or close to) "inbox zero" with little effort. Bundles, as mentioned in my hands-on, are the same as Gmail auto-label categories, but with expanded reach. In addition to the same categories you can have in Gmail - Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums - Inbox adds in three very useful new ones - Travel, Purchases, and Finance. Between these seven categories, Google pretty much has you covered. Sure, you can make your own custom bundles if you want (and the tools there are impressive), but most will be able to get a lot of value from just those seven. This is also a huge help for disorganized users, because Google does the organization for you.
Of course, there is also a bit of a functional change between starring and pinning. If you star something in Gmail, you can archive that message and still have it show in the "starred" folder. This is not the case with pins. If you pin something, it won't disappear when you "sweep" out your inbox; but, if you have something pinned and you hit that "done" button, it will disappear. If an item is important enough to pin, it is something you have to deal with, and something you don't want hidden away until it is truly "done".
Conclusion
Inbox isn't reimagining email; it is simply shifting how you deal with your email, or at the very least, how you see yourself dealing with your email. My usage in the switch between Gmail and Inbox is almost the same. I use the search feature a bit more often, but otherwise, I'm using it the same way I used to use Gmail. I'm not using the advanced new features, though I do see the value in them; but, even so, Inbox makes me feel like I'm being more productive, and getting more done. And, that's the real value of Inbox - whether or not you actually become more productive with it (and you certainly can, if you take advantage of all the features), it is simply more pleasurable to use than Gmail.
Things that are NOT allowed: