The folks over at Android Police found some evidence of Google looking to improve their email by adding more features and functionality to it. The new thing would adding tasks and task-like features to the mix. This is under the project name of Google Bigtop BTW.
According to their intel Bigtop will grant users access to categorize their messages by the means of several actions like pin tasks for immediate attention, snoozing for later, or by marking complete. Messsages could also be grouped together in the case of having multiple email threads within the same task. You will also be able to preview photos + attachments without having to open up the email it is within. This will integrate some Google Now-like cards such as flight info, shipping dates, hotel reservations and more.
Bigtop is said to arrive for your desktop, Android, iOS as well as support other email clients other than Gmail. No word on whether this will be implemented into Gmail or will this be a separate app entirely.
