I can’t disagree more. I find gmail to be a perfect example of why web apps are playing to the lowest common denominator and result in poor user experiences everywhere. Just my opinion though, I realise most people love it.
I'm on a Mac and mostly come from Mail.app, but many of these things would apply on Windows/Linux as well in slightly different forms.
- Speed. It's sluggish compared to the FastMail web UI, and slow compared to Mail.app on my Mac.
- System provided UI editing controls which would bring richer editing and consistent controls
- Consistent hotkeys - I know Gmail has rich hotkeys, but all my other software uses a fairly consistent set which can also access a wider range of keys than a browser can do.
- Automation - I use automation and tools like Alfred (/Quicksilver/Gnome Do/etc) and these can interface with native apps much more effectively through things like AppleScript.
- Drag and drop (you can drag and drop much more than you might think on a Mac, and I use it extensively)
- Centralised notification control in system preferences
- Better (and faster) layout – you're constrained to a web browser so there's less you can do in terms of good use of screen real-estate.
- Prettier – it might sound superficial, but I enjoy using apps that have a nicer design and Gmail, compared with many native clients, looks pretty terrible.
- Real multi-window support - using new tabs doesn't provide the same interface or interaction patterns.
- Real right-click support, with the options I'd expect for any other system app.
That's most of what I'd like to see. Note that an Electron app like Slack doesn't exhibit many of these.
It's better in that it required no configuration. But from a UI perspective it feels inferior. For example, native clients can just show you a list of all your messages, but GMail still paginates like a late-90s PHP site.
Believe it or not, in my experience, Exchange + Outlook 2016 stomps all over GMail. I find that its faster, searches quicker, and takes up _WAY_ less memory. I don't do any fancy things other than basic email, scheduling meetings, etc so YMMV.
