Gmail has some new official features, as in experimental “Labs” features, which have graduated into actual features.
Google announced as much in a Google+ post:
Send and archive, Quote selected text and Default reply to all graduate from Gmail Labs
The option to add Send and archive and Default reply to all to compose and reply are now both available by default. These time-saving features are useful if you often send and then immediately archive or always reply to everyone.
In addition, Quote selected text's graduation means that when you highlight text from an email you want to include in your reply, and then click reply, the compose template will be just what you selected. 
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As Gmail faces new competition from companies like Microsoft and AOL, and soon Yahoo, it is adding plenty of its own new features. In addition to these, both the Android and iOS apps have both been updated this week.
Recently, Google also launched some much-needed Google Drive integration on top of the search improvements it made last month (when it also became bigger than Hotmail).
Oh yeah, and they launched Gmail in Cherokee.