Google announced today a couple of additions to its web-based Gmail service aimed at making the product more fun to use, as well as more personal: it has now expanded its theme catalog, which allows you to customize the look-and-feel of Gmail, by adding hundreds of new themes to the service, and it has rolled out new emoji.
Themes have been a part of the Gmail experience since 2008, Google points out in a blog post announcing the changes. But they’re buried in the settings and Google hasn’t done much in the way of keeping the collection current with new and updated content over the years. That’s why the expansion of the themes section today is notable.
Where before, the catalog only featured a couple dozen themes – including those that were solid colors only – the new catalog will increase Gmail’s selection by hundreds, including more high-res options. Some of these include photographs taken by Google staff, the company says.
Users will also be able to upload their own themes, as well as use built-in editing tools like blur, vignette and text background to customize them further.
While themes are ultimately about personalizing your Gmail experience and having a little fun, they can serve a practical purpose, too – those Gmail users who maintain multiple accounts can take advantage of the feature as a way to make it immediately obvious at a glance which email account they’re currently signed into and using.n addition, Gmail is adding better emoji to its web-based email, which includes a set of smiley faces, as well as other categories, like food, nature, holidays and more – similar to what you’d find on mobile texting apps, or, as it turns out, Google’s own Hangouts app. This selection will likely replace the current selection of emoji, which are basically a holdover from an earlier era and resemble chat emoticons. (Frankly, they’ve been due for an update for some time.)
No comments:
Post a Comment