I think my account (or indeed the shard that I am on) has been upgraded with a hotted-up version of Gmail. This post explains the approach the team took to prepare Gmail for the future.

I am strong believer that the performance of an application is a key influencer in whether people continue to use it or not. For core applications (such as mail) it is critical that no unnecessary wait times be incurred as users notice when they are spending a disproportionate part of their day, everyday, battling their client.

For application authors, web or otherwise, who are seeking to place their app into the core group of applications users access frequently performance will be key. The goal is to remove friction between the user and the completion of their task.

On the topic of speedy Gmail, a few months back I wrote about web applications breaking out of the browser. Soon afterwards I came across the xul-runner-based Webrunner (apparently renamed Prism in the latest version) and used this to break Gmail and Gcalendar out into their own applications. I highly recommend you do the same. The suppositions I made in my post all held up; applications perform much better in their own process away from other web pages. The applications themselves are also much easier to access having been made available on the taskbar.

Webrunner and similar initiatives all have further to go but are already very usable and will save you minutes or longer everyday.

Stumble it!