Competition in the email app market is hotting up between the big name providers; first Google introduced a completely new app called Inbox that is aimed at improving the way email (and your life in general, it seems) is organised, And now Yahoo has added some useful new features in the form of travel and event notifications to its Android Mail app. From the ‘Today’ section in the Yahoo Mail app, you can see what your flight status is, as well as get directions to the airport, visit the airline’s website or call the airline directly to rebook a flight in the event of a cancellation.
However, it doesn’t stop there. Thanks to integration with Yelp (an app also available for Android that features user reviews of restaurants, bars, shops, landmarks and more), you can get information on top places to eat and drink directly from the app. Then if you’ve booked an event through Ticketmaster, Eventbrite or Evite, Yahoo Mail can help you can to get to the venue, as well as providing you details of the event itself. There is also the option to receive news notifications from directly within the app, but but this can be turned off in the settings menu.
Yahoo’s search engine (does anyone still use it?) has been showing this information for a while to users that are already signed in, although you can also see when a package is going to be delivered from these results, which isn’t currently available in the Mail app. Things appear to be looking up for Yahoo and CEO Marissa Mayer, as the company posted strong growth in the third quarter of this year. The results were far better than Wall Street Analysts expected and broke a pattern of losses the company had posted in recent quarters.
However, with a leaked video from Google suggesting that its main Gmail app (separate from the new Inbox app it has just launched) will integrate both Yahoo Mail and Microsoft’s Outlook email service, the company could still have some work to do to convince people to stick with its email offering rather than go with one of its competitors.