That’s the good thing: nothing new to design: we have the search bar, when you click on it you have the actual new tab view (with history, frequent sites). If you start typing text, you have the classical search view.
In fact, it’s like the current newtab behavior. But you don’t duplicate that with a browser icon. You just include it in the search bar.
So what do the developers’ team is thinking about it ?
Is it easy to implement ?
(I think this discussion should be part of a comprehensive design strategy. Discussing on details is pointless without a global vision on which direction we want to take. And now it’s probably too soon for a complete reworking of the UI.)
Yes, devs opinion is fundamental, please join the discussion!
as stated here the gecko icon could be confusing. I’d suggest the following steps.
I agree, but we don’t have resources for that now (as we are focusing on restoring the features).
So we could keep the change is tiny and fast to do as possible.
When you means step, it’s like doing 1 now and 2 + 3 later ?
I agree with that plan that sounds pragmatic 
I still don’t see what use would be a ‘new tab’ window other than the homescreen. We already have history integrated in the search bar and bookmarks in the homescreen… Why would we need a duplicate, possibly slowing down users’ interactions, while we already have all that we need in the homescreen?
It’s just for the overview (with opened app list) with the + button, and the private browsing page.