It looks as though Google's four-year-old Gmail will be replaced by Gmail 2 without ever getting out of its perpetual beta. According to the Google Operating System blog, the new features include message prefetch, and a new contact manager. Otherwise it looks the same. GOS has screenshots and Inside Google has some videos.
Some people already have the new version. If that includes you, then you should see a link that says you can go back to the old version. (It doesn't include me.)
The new contacts manager and better integration with other Google apps will both be welcome. Frankly, it's hard to see how the contacts manager could be any worse, and Google's current level of application integration struggles to achieve mediocrity. It would be nice to think that Google will one day provide Outlook synchronisation but at best it's running almost a decade behind Yahoo.
It would also be nice if Google gave Gmail users the option to have folders. Sadly, the company appears to have a religious conviction against the idea, so things like practicality and user preference count for nothing. Again, this is something Yahoo does much better.
Whether message prefetch will help is an open question. The aim is to try to disguise the fact that you are running mail remotely and therefore the performance isn't as snappy as a desktop client such as Outlook. It should certainly help people who get lots of short emails. If you have bandwidth to spare, it won't do any harm.
However, I'm not complaining if Gmail's look and feel stays the same. It looks great as it is, and I still think it looks better than either Yahoo or Windows Live Mail. Gmail also performs better than either of those, and it does better spam blocking. Those three alone are probably enough to keep Gmail in the top spot for Web-based email, for most people, so any improvements that come with Gmail 2 are really just a bonus.
