GMail Screenshot Leaked During Google I/O Session; Shows Redesigned Interface

One of my favorite things Google has done with Android over the recent major updates is improving GMail. I’ll be the first to say that the GMail interface on Android devices running Gingerbread and lower was quite pathetic. With Ice Cream Sandwich, Google unveiled an entirely new GMail interface that is gorgeous and the company is still making improvements to today During a Google I/O session focusing on “Structure in Android App Design,” Google talked about how developers should design navigation in their apps, focusing a lot on the new navigation drawer Google is implementing throughout Android. During the session, the company showed a a screenshot of an app with the navigation drawer, and it is discovered that it is Gmail.

The screenshot shown shows a nearly entirely new GMail design for Android. Obviously, the biggest change is the addition of the navigation drawer. In the upper left corner of the interface are three little dots, which once you tap, will bring up the drawer. It will pop up over the inbox and covers most of it. The navigation drawer allows you to easily switch between your inbox and priority inbox, as well as all of your other labels. It appears as if the navigation drawer will scroll, however, as noticeably missing from the screenshot are labels like Drafts, All Mail, Spam, and Trash.

It’s also safe to assume that the action bar along the bottom of the current GMail app is gone in the redesigned one. Instead, the Compose, Search, and overflow buttons have made their way to the top right corner of the interface. This gives more room for emails, which in an email app, is always a good thing. The refresh button does appear to be missing, but most likely it is now in the overflow menu, or maybe, hopefully, we’ll finally see pull-to-refresh.

For now, that’s all we can really make out in this screenshot. There’s a chance that Google did this on purpose and that this update will roll out any time now, or it’s possible that this was just an error by whoever designed the slide show for the session.