In what can only be described as a major departure from convention, Yahoo has updated its mail app on the Google Play Store with support for rival third party webmail services like Microsoft’s Outlook.com, Hotmail, and AOL Mail. Yahoo however, is yet to integrate support for the world’s most-used webmail service – Gmail, and there’s no telling whether the company intends to do that at a later date. The integration of three other services alongside Yahoo Mail will of course, allow users to send and receive mails via those e-mail services right from the Yahoo mobile app, allowing the company to keep its users within its fold. The beta version of the app of course, had already given us an idea about what to expect from Yahoo’s new design philosophy. It also revealed that it’s going to bring forth a number of new enhancements and tweaks, including a full material design makeover.
Alongside the new standout feature, Yahoo also claims to have included other new tweaks, such as “smarter search, contacts management and rich compose”, according to the app’s listing page on the Google Play Store. But the one feature that Yahoo really seems to be highlighting, is the new “Yahoo Account Key” feature, which promises to relieve users from the annoyance of using passwords to log into their account every time. The new feature introduced by Yahoo will allow users who’ve forgotten their passwords, to log in to their accounts without any hassle, by using a code send to them via a text. This of course, goes without saying, will require users to share their phone numbers with the company, for the feature to work.
As for some of the other new features included as part of the update, Yahoo also says that the app will now be noticeably snappier than before. As for some of the other design changes, the window for composing mails now comes with options to attach a number of multimedia files simultaneously. Users can now also send themselves messages by long pressing the ‘compose mail’ button. What also deserves a mention is the fact the colors have changed from a rather dull and dreary solid purple to a gradient that fades from dark to light. Although the trademark ‘Yahoo purple’ stays on, it is noticeably brighter and more cheerful than before. The app also comes with a prominent newspaper icon on the top right-hand corner of the inbox screen, which allows users to go over to Yahoo News directly from within the mail client, thereby eliminating the need for a separate app.