Image: keso/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Google has continued to revamp and refine their product lineup this week in a bid to bring their services closer together.
Firstly, they’ve added a two-pane view, which they call Preview Pane, to Gmail Labs. If you don’t already know, a two-pane view allows you to read emails without leaving the page, as seen below.
Gmail's new two-pane view
This is far from revolutionary as Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail have had it for years. But it’s still a good sign that Google is far from finished improving Gmail.
To enable the feature just go to Gmail Labs here and turn on “Preview Pane”.
The same day Google also revamped the Documents view in Google Docs, giving their Microsoft Office-competitor a Google+-style colour scheme. It’s cleaner, but I still find Google Docs viewer to be the worst part of the usually good service.
And last, and least, Google has killed a product I didn’t even know about. Google Dictionary served it’s last definitions yesterday and was silently turned off. You can still find definitions with Google Search by searching “Define <word>”. It is a bit worrying to see two Google services shut-down in two weeks, but hopefully the resources can be focused on something more useful.
It also looks like it’s only a matter of time before Google Picasa gets it’s makeover, and possibly a rename.
So, what did you like or dislike most about the Google updates, and murders, this week? Tell us in the comments. We don’t bite.