Choosing Convenience Over Your Favorites: Why Today, I Go Back To Gmail
From time to time, I think it’s important to re-evaluate the things that you involve yourself with on a daily basis. The people you see, the route you take to work, the software you use, the food you eat…we are humans and our preferences and needs change far more frequently than we realize.
I’m a big advocate for trying new software, new services and new things. When a new email client comes out, I download it. If it passes my preliminary test (does it work, does it have the features I need), then I will dive-in, head-first, for a couple days to a week to see what it has to offer. I do this regardless of how much I like my current email client, even if it’s serving every purpose and it’s the most beautiful piece of software I’ve ever seen. I do this because nothing is ever the best forever and if I don’t embrace new products, I’ll never be able to find ones that I like more than the ones I’m using and used to.
On A Quest For Innovation
About a month ago I decided to try out the new Outlook.com email; for the last 10 years I have been using Gmail, in some capacity, as my primary email host. It’s always worked, it’s got great features and it has everything that I need in an email provider. Why would I even bother switching? I’m human, I’m curious and I’ll be honest, I think Outlook.com is really pretty. I created my account and used it for a day, I was hooked. The next day I forwarded all of my other personal emails to my new Outlook email and “unplugged” from my Gmail account(s), at least as much as I could.
How I Love Outlook
I love Outlook email…like…I really love it, the interface is new, it feels like 2013. The polish is beautiful, the apps are great, the fonts are big, it’s fast, the filters work great - it has everything that I need in an email service. But that’s just it, it has everything that I need in an email service…and that’s not enough. If I had to pick just an email service, I would pick Outlook.com, if I had to tell you what my favorite email service is, I would tell you, Outlook.com - sounds pretty straight forward!
So Why Am I Moving Back To Gmail?
I have no choice! This is a Google world, not a Microsoft world, not an Apple world, not a Samsung world; A Google World. Sure, I can use Outlook.com for my email service, but I still need my gmail account to use my Android phone. I still need my gmail account to access Google’s other really awesome services that I use (Drive, Calendar, Play, Music). Sure, I can find alternatives for those things, but then I’m trying to find more services and more alternatives…because of an email service preference.
It’s Too Inconvenient NOT To Use Gmail
Seriously, it’ s just easier to use Gmail as my email service. I think it’s ugly, draconian and built for 2005; I avoid this by only accessing gmail using desktop email clients and mobile apps. The Google design itself is very retro and scattered. You have Google+, which is a terrible Social Network, but it’s beautiful and modern, whereas you have something like Gmail or Google Calendar that both look so ancient and old that you don’t want to see them. There’s not a unified look other than a black bar across the top of all of your websites.
I need Gmail because I need Google. Not in the sense that if I didn’t have it, I would waste away into famine and self-pity, but in the sense that it’s just too damned inconvenient to not have it. So today, I unforward my emails, forward my Outlook.com address and go back to Gmail, where life is less complicated and I’m not required to hold another email address active just for random services.
Doing This With Everything
I do this all the time, I do this with Email Services, Desktop Email Clients, Web Browsers, Code Editing Software, RSS Readers, Social Networks, Graphic Programs, FTP Software - anything and everything that I use on a daily basis, is always under review. There is always new and amazing software coming out that is better than the previous, most of the time it never makes the big-time because people are too comfortable with what they use and what they know and because it already just works, they don’t see the need to change.
