What's funny is that sometimes designers need to really accept that there may be a need for more than a single use-case and that a global all-happy answer isn't right. If it weren't for actually breaking up into groups of answer blocks we'd never have Thick And Chunky spaghetti sauce.
For a largely used application like gmail (or email in generally), it's often important to be able to show a "simple" interface and an "advanced" interface... this flag should affect all areas of use... Not just bury options together under an "advanced settings" menu.. but by declaring "I'm an advanced user" other menus will offer more options.
Some of said screens will be wholly different, and that is okay.
I have to agree on a lot of the changes you make note of regarding Gmail for android, and in VS... What really got me was when they changed the mail app in android to match gmail... I really don't need a randomly colored box with a letter for every email I see... I'd rather have a few more words from the subject, or sender's email address.
In a tablet, it's actually not so bad... I can't imagine how bad that would be in my browser.
For a largely used application like gmail (or email in generally), it's often important to be able to show a "simple" interface and an "advanced" interface... this flag should affect all areas of use... Not just bury options together under an "advanced settings" menu.. but by declaring "I'm an advanced user" other menus will offer more options.
Some of said screens will be wholly different, and that is okay.
I have to agree on a lot of the changes you make note of regarding Gmail for android, and in VS... What really got me was when they changed the mail app in android to match gmail... I really don't need a randomly colored box with a letter for every email I see... I'd rather have a few more words from the subject, or sender's email address.
In a tablet, it's actually not so bad... I can't imagine how bad that would be in my browser.