Google gets in the April Fools' spirit with a festive feature called Mic Drop on Gmail, but things took a turn for the worse when plenty of users found it disruptive, causing the company to take it down.
For those who missed it, Mic Drop is an alternative Send option for pranksters on the email service, which recently got Smart Reply. It's sort of like a mute button on steroids. First off, the sender won't hear another word from any of the recipient when they use it. On top of that, the email will feature a GIF of one of Gru's Minions dropping a microphone in a smug but comical way.
However, some of the recipients didn't think it was funny at all, as they got insulted by the animated picture. It cut both ways as well, as some of the senders unintentionally sent out some of them in serious email conversations. A user even reportedly lost a job opportunity because of it.
Hey @gmail, I think you guys just ruined my chances at getting a job with your mic drop "prank." My fat fingers hit the button.
— Billy Brannum (@irresistibilly) April 1, 2016
To make matters worse, some even said that the Minion showed up even when they hit the ordinary Send button.
Just confirmed this bug. Gmail adds the GIF even when clicking the normal "Send" button. https://t.co/tSS2gdo0iQ — Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016
It doesn't take a genius to foresee this, but the users flooded Google with complaints at the Gmail Help Forum, asking the company to pull the feature and how to remove it.
On the bright side, Google heard the users loud and clear, swiftly taking the appropriate steps to resolve the issue and apologizing for the incident at the same time.
"Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We're truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page," Victor-bogdan Anchidin, a software engineer at Google, says.
Long story short, it looks like Google learned that a core product used in businesses and such like Gmail shouldn't be a part of April Fool's Day, otherwise it will cause a big mess like this.
Photo: Fred Guillory | Flickr
