Gmail for Android received a major upgrade recently to bring in Cards UI for the email messages. And along with these new features, the company have left some traces of bringing Ads into Gmail for Android.
Android Police explored the updated Gmail for Android APK and found out traces of Ads coming in into the app in near future. The ads on Gmail for Android are not active yet, but this is definitely coming in future.
Google recently tested out ads in Gmail web interface, that looks exactly like the email threads in your inbox. And thankfully, Gmail’s new smart inbox helps us filter out these ads. These new traces which were found in the app might give us some insights about the ads which would be pushed into the devices.
There are some particular strings in the APK, which points to statements like Will not save ad as message and Will save ad as message. These might hint that the ads will indeed be in the inbox, and will merge along with the email messages. On the other hand, the Strings also has yet another value, which is Ad dismissed, indicating that the company might push out popup ads or some ads of that kinds to the mobile devices.
While these are some traces which points to some user side stuff, there is a whole new library which has been added to the app. The library has about 8 classes, which points to a lot of different possibilities for the ads that are to come to the app. For instance, there’s a class named AdHeaderView, which might point to rolling ads, which could be at the top of the application.
Ultimately, pushing out ads on Gmail for Android would be something huge, which the users will not be able to escape out of. The company would be making tons of money from the revenue it generates with these ads, and with its huge 500 million to a billion user base for the app, its going to be huge. But personally, I won’t be a fan of the ads in Gmail for Android, I think this would be intrusive. Imagine when you’re replying to some email, and an ad pops up immediately.