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Last week I did a visualization of all email clients in time from '79 to now (http://email-apps-timeline.missiveapp.com http://email-apps-timeline.missiveapp.co

by plehoux 11y ago

Last week I did a visualization of all email clients in time from '79 to now (http://email-apps-timeline.missiveapp.com http://email-apps-timeline.missiveapp.com). It shows that there is a lot happening in the email space right now, even if the technical barrier to entry, as the author implies, is so high.

whatever_dude 11y ago
Great chart! Some of those new email clients look great. I wonder if any of them will become solid and popular enough.
- baldfat 11y ago
  I am still waiting for the application that kills email and the need for clients..
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Given that the set of folks that are interested in and capable of making widely used end-user communcations software, and the set of people who are not interested in making walled gardens appears to have no overlap, you're going to be waiting for approximately forever. :(
    - baldfat 11y ago
      ONE DAY MY TIME WILL COME!
      - simoncion 11y ago
        :) Just as long as part of your glorious future is a fully open and Libre protocol, federated servers, and -at a minimum- feature parity with email I'm 100% okay with it. :D
jakobegger 11y ago
The barrier to entry isn't high at all. The author was able to create an email client in 3 weeks. That's not a lot of time. Yes, making a solid GUI app will take a year. But that's the case with any solid app, and I doubt email is significantly harder than other productivity apps.
- dmbaggett 11y ago
  It impossible to overstate how wrong you are. Read some of my comments in this thread. One of the absolute worst mistakes you can make as a developer is to assume that what you don't know or understand must be easy. That's the path to ultimate project doom -- don't do it.
  - jakobegger 11y ago
    I never said that I thought it was easy; I just don't see the email-specific barrier to entry. Syncing is hard in general, dealing with legacy systems is a pain, parsing poorly compliant file formats is annoying... But you have that everywhere. What do you expect? That writing an email client should be as easy as cobbling together a map view with Google Maps? If that's your point of reference, then yes, there is a barrier to entry. In another reply you said that your MVP took 4 years; but looking at your website I see something that tries to compete with Outlook. That's hardly what I'd consider an MVP. I'm pretty certain that I could develop a solid email app in a year. Of course, it wouldn't do everything that existing mail clients do, and it wouldn't be compatible with every email provider, and it would probably be limited to a single platform. But it would do some things differently enough that it would be worthwhile for a few people. If you think there's an insurmountable barrier to entry, you need to take a step back. There is absolutely no need to compete with the best existing clients on a feature-by-feature basis to enter a market. Focus on a small niche, and go from there.
    - coffee 11y ago
      > I just don't see the email-specific barrier to entry. Syncing is hard in general, dealing with legacy systems is a pain, parsing poorly compliant file formats is annoying... But you have that everywhere. Have you ever written a production grade email client?
maelito 11y ago
Awesome vis !
mhw 11y ago
Wow, that's great. One immediate bit of insight from the top right of the chart is how the modern email client is almost universally an iOS app, with other platforms if you're lucky.
- mxuribe 11y ago
  Agreed...but I wonder if that's because ios folks tend to be more interested in products with more design built into them, in other words there is more of a market for a wider variety of products...? Or, if maybe non-ios users tend to think of email as a utility and figure "design-y" products for such "mundane" things as mail are "meh". Mind you, that's not my opinion, but just curious myself.
aurhum 11y ago
really nice, thanks! another client for your timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Internet_Users_Essential_Tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Internet_Users_Essen...

by plehoux 11y ago

whatever_dude 11y ago

Great chart! Some of those new email clients look great. I wonder if any of them will become solid and popular enough.

baldfat 11y ago
I am still waiting for the application that kills email and the need for clients..
- simoncion 11y ago
  Given that the set of folks that are interested in and capable of making widely used end-user communcations software, and the set of people who are not interested in making walled gardens appears to have no overlap, you're going to be waiting for approximately forever. :(
  - baldfat 11y ago
    ONE DAY MY TIME WILL COME!
    - simoncion 11y ago
      :) Just as long as part of your glorious future is a fully open and Libre protocol, federated servers, and -at a minimum- feature parity with email I'm 100% okay with it. :D

jakobegger 11y ago

The barrier to entry isn't high at all. The author was able to create an email client in 3 weeks. That's not a lot of time. Yes, making a solid GUI app will take a year. But that's the case with any solid app, and I doubt email is significantly harder than other productivity apps.

dmbaggett 11y ago
It impossible to overstate how wrong you are. Read some of my comments in this thread. One of the absolute worst mistakes you can make as a developer is to assume that what you don't know or understand must be easy. That's the path to ultimate project doom -- don't do it.
- jakobegger 11y ago
  I never said that I thought it was easy; I just don't see the email-specific barrier to entry. Syncing is hard in general, dealing with legacy systems is a pain, parsing poorly compliant file formats is annoying... But you have that everywhere. What do you expect? That writing an email client should be as easy as cobbling together a map view with Google Maps? If that's your point of reference, then yes, there is a barrier to entry. In another reply you said that your MVP took 4 years; but looking at your website I see something that tries to compete with Outlook. That's hardly what I'd consider an MVP. I'm pretty certain that I could develop a solid email app in a year. Of course, it wouldn't do everything that existing mail clients do, and it wouldn't be compatible with every email provider, and it would probably be limited to a single platform. But it would do some things differently enough that it would be worthwhile for a few people. If you think there's an insurmountable barrier to entry, you need to take a step back. There is absolutely no need to compete with the best existing clients on a feature-by-feature basis to enter a market. Focus on a small niche, and go from there.
  - coffee 11y ago
    > I just don't see the email-specific barrier to entry. Syncing is hard in general, dealing with legacy systems is a pain, parsing poorly compliant file formats is annoying... But you have that everywhere. Have you ever written a production grade email client?

maelito 11y ago

Awesome vis !

mhw 11y ago

Wow, that's great. One immediate bit of insight from the top right of the chart is how the modern email client is almost universally an iOS app, with other platforms if you're lucky.

mxuribe 11y ago
Agreed...but I wonder if that's because ios folks tend to be more interested in products with more design built into them, in other words there is more of a market for a wider variety of products...? Or, if maybe non-ios users tend to think of email as a utility and figure "design-y" products for such "mundane" things as mail are "meh". Mind you, that's not my opinion, but just curious myself.

aurhum 11y ago

really nice, thanks! another client for your timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Internet_Users_Essential_Tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Internet_Users_Essen...