"New Gmail" Redux

Awhile back -- not worth finding to link to -- I opined that "New Gmail" looks like ass.

Not svelte, sexy ass, but "shouldn't be wearing stretchy fabrics in public, because it grosses people out" ass.

That was back in the day when it was still possible to revert to the previous user interface. It recently became non-optional. You get "New Gmail" whether you like it or not.

Thane Eichenauer just reminded me -- via "New Gmail" -- that I've been meaning to comment on how badly I hate "New Gmail."

It is to me as Bagginses are to Smeagols: We hatesssss it forever and ever!

Aside from looking like ass, it also seems to have at least one functionality problem.

One nice thing about Gmail is that you can start typing in an address in the "to" field and it will pop up with addresses from your contacts list.

Another nice thing about Gmail is that you can organize your contact list internally into other lists -- and those will pop up if you start typing their list names.

Lately -- just since "New Gmail" arrived -- I've found that about half the time if I start typing a list name into the field, it doesn't pop up. I have to log out and log back in to get that function to work. And it happens to be a function I use multiple times most days.

I know that I'm not the most adaptive individual on Earth -- when I like something and get used to that thing, I'm never really happy to see it changed from under me. But this goes beyond that default position. I have yet to notice so much a single, solitary way in which "New Gmail" is aesthetically or functionally superior to the previous version.