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.mail app
- tastive 14y agoAssuming one of the creators reads this: "A clean and Actionsteps." I would like better attachment management than I've got now, so I'll probably take a peek. Thanks.
- 3JPLW 14y agoWhat is it? It took me quite a while (and a few web links) to discover that it's a Mac email client. Interesting how many new email clients are emerging this summer. I'm taking note due to the likely abandonment of Sparrow. Also due to come out "this summer" is Mail Pilot: http://mail-pilot.com/ http://mail-pilot.com/
- trebor 14y agoI've already looked at Postbox, made by some of the previous Thunderbird developers. http://postbox-inc.com/ http://postbox-inc.com/ I'd have to try these to even come close to figuring out what to use. But the idea of SSO for email is a bad one, in my opinion. Email, more than my user account on a site, defines my online identity—and therefore needs the greatest protection.
- masenf 14y agoFrom the video: "Our servers store metadata about your messages, but not the messages themselves" It's difficult for me to invest the time (and effort) required to use a service like this, when that investment could easily just go away when the service is pulled for whatever reason. Or, if their servers are down will I have robust access to my mail client? One of the nice things about old email is that it is portable. Metadata on 3rd party servers seems to cast this positive aspect about email aside. Some aspects of these new emerging services are novel, specifically the UI and layout of features. As many have pointed out recently, similar functionality has existed in mail clients for years. However, not every email user is aware that their use of email could be made more productive just by utilizing the tools already in their email environment. I would guess these mail client-services are catering to that market -- the less technically inclined. Consequently, these customers are less likely to know or care about the implications of spreading vital work-related or important data across new and potentially volatile services. That said, I do support nice-looking and more usable email clients, just not at the cost of dependence on a 3rd party service.
- jmduke 14y agoIt's good to see some actual followthrough on the initial concept. I honestly like the proposed Attachments and Notifications features (I'm also not a mail client aficionado, so I don't know if these are particularly groundbreaking), but the Actionsteps thing sounds clumsy to me. If my problem is that I don't have enough time to parse, read, and respond to all of my email, I don't understand how adding another step will alleviate that.
- chipotle_coyote 14y agoI don't know if these are particularly groundbreaking Other than the "Actionsteps," a lot of what's in this proposed client sounds a lot like features in Postbox. I can switch to a "show me all attachments" view, for instance, and Postbox works very well with a lot of GMail-specific features (labels, priority, etc.).
- calinet6 14y agoI'd like to be able to read my e-mail address while typing it please... $("input#email").css("color", "#333"); Otherwise, fantastic. Thanks. Ideally you just buy Sparrow and add the 2 features it was missing. We can only hope.
- kwamenum86 14y agoSmells like an acquisition in a year or so (and I mean that as a compliment). Congrats in advance.
- antr 14y agoI've just installed OS X Mountain Lion... and gone back to Apple's Mail (no more Sparrow). I'm too tired of chasing another email/to-do client that might get acq-hired, with no future support. Having said that, the idea behind .mail app is elegant, well thought and a step forward. Kudos.
- kristiandupont 14y agoAre you applying this to all your apps then, including webapps or are you treating email as a special case?
- clutteredname_ 14y ago"Launching" on the heels of the announcement from Sparrow seems like a poor choice. A lot of people felt like they just got dumped. Then again, this is just another fancy "Give us your email address for whenever we get our act together" page, so maybe people will be more lenient.
- tjohns 14y agoWhat do you mean no more Sparrow? Last time I checked, it's still available for download. My understanding was that it just isn't in active development anymore. I use it as my primary mail client on my personal machine, and it does pretty much everything I'd want as is.
- nestlequ1k 14y agoI've used Sparrow every day for over a year. It's got a great UI and I love it, but it's buggy as hell. Slow, sometimes doesn't refresh, the DB grows to 10s of GBs. As much as I like it, the fact that there's not going to be any more updates has gotten me to switch off it. Software is fluid, not static. Any software that is not being updated, I believe any rational user should move on to ones that are.
- jameswyse 14y agoFor anyone who is confused, this is the implementation of a concept which was posted 2 weeks ago. It's looking really good, can't wait to try it! Link to concept post: http://www.vanschneider.com/work/mail/ http://www.vanschneider.com/work/mail/ And original HN post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4223869 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4223869
- davidcollantes 14y agoFrom: https://vanschneider.squarespace.com/mail-the-first-summary https://vanschneider.squarespace.com/mail-the-first-summary -- "Currently I'm developing a prototype and then hopefully move on to Kickstarter. But there's no plan yet if it's going to be a WebApp, MacOS or Windows app." In other words, vaporware (so far).
- untog 14y agoThat summary was posted on July 18th, so it's not necessarily up to date.
- trekkin 14y agoYes, a lot could have changed in one week... really?
- untog 14y agoWell, within a week someone can decide to turn a prototype into an actual project. Thus, not necessarily vaporware.
- tree_of_item 14y agoYes, really. Someone can easily decide what platform to target in one week. What's so surprising about that?
- avree 14y agoHe edited that post after you posted this comment, it seems. It now reads "Currently I'm developing a prototype and then move into development. A MacOSX app is going to be the first release."
- astral303 14y agoBest of luck w/ the implementation. However, reading the concept, I am unimpressed. In Mail.app, I can already mark e-mails with different-colored flags, which allows me to come up with my own "get back soon" or "get back later" type of a system. The assertion that e-mail hasn't changed since 1970's is false. Modern e-mail clients manage it much better. Compare Mail.app, Outlook and GMail to PINE--the difference is staggering. The true innovator in the e-mail space has been GMail, which has brought things like autosave, concepts such as embracing the fact that it is not truly productive to file every single e-mail into a purposeful folder, embracing that tagging is better than folders. GMail also really pushed the conversational view and presented it in a single-screen way that was innovative (compare how long it took e-mail clients to catch up with that... and no, "group by thread" did not compare). I'm also very wary of anyone advertising "clean typography." People start adding spacing and now I only end up previewing 2/3rds of what I could preview in one screenful.
- irahul 14y ago> concepts such as embracing the fact that it is not truly productive to file every single e-mail into a purposeful folder, embracing that tagging is better than folders. I don't know if it was there from the beginning, but I have always used rules which say "apply filter and skip inbox" effectively giving me separate folders. To each his own; I don't like kitchen-sink inbox, and like separate folders to just tagging.
- nailer 14y agoSure, re: skipping inbox, me too. But tagging allows you to have a folder-like appearance but removes to 1:1 relationship. I can have a folder of 'emails sent to me specifically' and an 'emails from my accountant' that happens to have the same message. This is super useful.
- jfb 14y agoGMail freed us from the tyranny of trying to build a single ontology for organizing email. To me it's the most radical and admirable thing Google has done by some measure. I would very much like to see this approach applied to other areas of HCI. The fewer flawed assumptions baked into semantics, te better.
- 89a 14y agoSomeone wants to work at Google/Facebook then. But on a more serious note, it doesn't look like a cocoa app to me so I'm not that keen on it. Too much custom UI and looks more at home on Windows 8
- aklofas 14y agoReally? Cocoa and Objective-C are ungodly messes that best be avoided, me thinks.
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- ricardobeat 14y agoNow is the perfect time to re-create Sparrow.
- kyro 14y agoFirst thing I thought of when I read the heading Actionsteps was being able to tailor actions specific to each email. For instance, you receive an email from Twitter saying someone's following you, and you're given the options to either "follow", "@reply", "ignore", etc, and similarly for Facebook. Receive a bill from ATT and your next steps are "pay bill", "file as important", "put on to-do." You're essentially containing all of the work necessary to resolve the subject of the email within the client itself. You could allow for app plugins/extensions so that others could develop hooks into various services. Other than that, it looks clean and simple. I'm eager to try it out when it's launched.
- simantel 14y agoI would pay for this. Great idea!
- mnicole 14y agoIs IFTTT too generic to do something like that?
- kyro 14y agoI suppose it could handle some tasks that apply universally to one type of email message from a given source, but not for most that involve highly personalized/sensitive information – bank statements, scheduling appointments, etc.
- joshaidan 14y ago"Actionsteps solves the flagging problem, where every email you know that you need to respond to is of equal importance." Wouldn't it be interesting if the sender of an email could specify what Actionsteps are required for a given email? i.e. The sender specifies that an email should be: read by the receiver, replied to by the receiver, forwarded to a specific department, complete a specific task, etc.
- Spooky23 14y agoSounds like it's time to party like it's 1992 with Lotus Notes.
- jvm 14y agoWhoo boy does that site ever not work without javascript... Sort of ridiculous since it's a static page advertising a desktop app, neither of which should require javascript at all. EDIT: Oh God, and hot pink highlighting does NOT complement their color scheme. And for all its javascript fanciness, it doesn't handle resizing at all. Sorry to be so negative, this site just pushes all my buttons.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- brianlovin 14y agoHighlighting is red on my end...
- nrj 14y agoWhat sort of sites are you visiting that do work without javascript?
- mike-cardwell 14y agoNearly all of them.
- EnderMB 14y agoMany agencies build their sites to work without JavaScript.
- dchuk 14y agowell it's 2012, the overwhelming majority of users have JS enabled
- twelvechairs 14y agoYou are right, but nowdays there is an (albeit small) trend in the opposite direction (dont enable javascript) with privacy-conscious users using noscript/scriptno and such.
- bigdubs 14y agoA bone to pick with the name: Leading "." in filenames usually causes the Finder (and ls) to omit the files in listings. Maybe not a great look for an email app.
- chimeracoder 14y ago> "When the first email was sent in the early 1970's there was no big difference to the email we know today." - And this is the problem. Actually, this is the greatest advantage of email: its extreme portability across platforms and clients. We can reinvent the way we interact with it, but we don't need to reinvent the technology itself. This is an immensely important distinction.
- shocks 14y agoAny plans for cross-platform support or is this yet another Apple only affair?
- dsirijus 14y agoI didn't think concept was flexible enough when it originally ran here on HN frontpage.
- ChronoGawd 14y agoSeem very similar to Mail Pilot (www.mail-pilot.com), although Mail Pilot seems that it will still be a monthly paid service, as .Mail app doesn't (at least I couldn't find if it is). Which is a big deal for me. As for .Mail seems like you pay for the app such as Sparrow (which it looks similar too) and not have to pay monthly for it. I plan on buying it if it comes out as it shows and does what it does. Anyone know when it is coming out? And if it will have a monthly cost?
- ChronoGawd 14y agoAnd or iPhone app? (Sparrow + Mail Pilot (or .Mail)) Would be my dream iPhone mail app.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bman101 14y agoLooks like Mail Pilot will have apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
- ChronoGawd 14y agoI am in the beta and it looks pretty heavily Java. Which I personally don't like as much as Sparrow being a native app in all OS's... I feel like the Desktop apps are going to be Adobe Air, or some web Java app as it is now.
- joamag 14y agoLooking awesome
- glennos 14y agoThis looks nice, but doesn't strike me as a revolution. What I would love to see is a mail client that does away with the antiquated inbox/sent paradigm. It would be replaced by active/archived. If I send an email, it would appear in my active list until the expected outcome is achieved (eg. a reply). At that point I archive it. Sent and received would sit in the same view (like Facebook, etc), why they don't already on clients is beyond me. I shouldnt have to manage 2 views to ensure I've acted on received and others have acted on my sent.
- modarts 14y agoIssue in Chrome [v 20.0.1132.47 m] Focusing in the email textbox, followed by tabbing out causes the box to shift down (pretty sure that's not intentional)
- state 14y agoWhat I think is most interesting about this is how successfully implemented this PR campaign is. I think some of the criticism of the app is warranted: but we have nothing concrete to look at, and no real information about how the app will be developed. It seems likely to be a case of someone believing too much in the power of 'design' while overlooking the importance of 'implementation'. If I could somehow be convinced that these two things were conceived of holistically by the creator I'd be much more interested. I do, however, really applaude the precision with which this project has appealed to people's desires.
- winter_blue 14y agoIt would be great if instead of having to build a new app ground up every time we want to add a few features, if we could simply add those features to the existing application. This would be a lot easier if that application was open source, but having a modular architecture and malleable/extensible design would be more important. Does anyone have thoughts on application that are designed such that features can be added to it easily?
- mike-cardwell 14y agoThunderbird uses similar technology for it's addons as Firefox and is just as extensible. If you can write JavaScript, you should be able to figure out how to extend Thunderbird. The entire calendar and pgp functionality comes from addons.
- dysoco 14y ago".Mail is coming to your dock" Well... I supposed it won't come out for Linux.
- almost 14y agoLooks interesting, there's definitely stuff that can be done to make email better. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. If you're interested in this and you're a GMail user you might also be interested in Active Inbox[1] which adds some useful features on top of Gmail. It lets you mark emails GTD style as "Action" (requires an action), "Waiting" (waiting on someone else) or "SomeDay" (there's an action to take, but you might not do it now). It also has an easy way to sort emails by project and some other useful features. Disclaimer: I met Andy of Active Inbox recently and ended up doing a few days work on the product. But I was a happy (and paying) user of Active Inbox before that! [1]: https://www.activeinboxhq.com/ https://www.activeinboxhq.com/
- jenius 14y agoPerfect timing on this, right after the demise of sparrow. I was starting to really get down on the idea of having no really nice desktop mail client for OSX. Really looking forward to checking out this app, and I really hope Tobias is either secretly an incredible osx programmer or is going to get one on board to help, because it would be a shame to see a beautifully designed interface like this be brought down by poor implementation.
- Iaks 14y agoJust a heads up, if the creator is reading here, your page loads 0 content with javascript blocked. A minimal plea for javascript unblocking might gain you extra traffic - I know I didn't care enough to add you to my whitelist, since I had NOTHING to go on.
- sp332 14y agoYou intentionally disabled a chunk of your web browser, and are now complaining that some websites don't look right?
- lukeholder 14y agoi agree. people that disable javascript these days are just plain weird.
- mehulkar 14y agoAs long as you don't sell your product to Google and stop development as soon as I get used to it and start liking it.
- brianbreslin 14y agoAm I the only one who worries about the branding of this?
- adhipg 14y agoIsn't there too much emphasis on 'click' on the page? The interface gives a feeling that it not benefit power users. I usually never leave my keyboard when reading/writing emails. Keyboard shortcuts on GMail (and Sparrow) have been the most important feature for me to get my mail done faster.
- stefanve 14y agoWould love to have a ubuntu version of this. Will pay up to 30$. Or any other mail client
- axx 14y agoPretty nice timing: - Sparrow announces that they've been acquired by Google on the 20th - on the 23th http://dotmailapp.com/ http://dotmailapp.com/ gets created (as far as i can see it from the DNS record)
- 5h 14y agoWith the gmail web interface I already have all of these features, actionsteps are stars in gmail, i use yellow & red bang, and red star .. just press s to rotate, attachments have never been an issue but maybe thats just me, searching for "from:a@b has:att<down><tab>" is quite quick enough and using filters & labels gives me the notification functionality, e.g. messages from facebook get a label, i can see facebook (3) or whatever on the left, but it will work for any type of email i wish. "meh" is my main reaction to this, unless it has something new and is as transparent to synchronisation across devices as gmail i won't be interested
- raikia 14y agoI'm confused. Is this only for Mac (it looks like it from the screenshots)? I find it a terrible business move to have a start-up release their product only for a platform that is much less than 10% of the world's personal computing marketshare. It looks nice, but I think you have shot yourself in the foot for trying to release a Mac app first. Windows doesn't have any good email application that is still developed anymore. Pretty much the choices are Outlook and Thunderbird (the latter of which was just announced would have no more feature developing). People are looking for the next email client to flock to...