6 ms·

The Mail Pilot Public Beta

30 points by alexobenauer 14y ago

kadjar 14y ago
So.. there's no way to try it without dropping $60? It looks nice, but I don't even buy operating systems without trying them first, let alone subscription services.
- tanepiper 14y ago
  This - asking me to commit $60 for a whole year, without even giving me 15 or 30 days to see if it works for me really puts me off. There seems to be an overconfidence from the developer that they have the perfect solution to something that isn't really a problem.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    And it's not a one-time payment, they want a subscription payment every year, which is incredibly obnoxious for a desktop app.
mapleoin 14y ago
From the about page: Email is in need of a fresh start. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I can’t wait to check my email!” Am I the only person who has no problem managing their email? I'm a software developer and have 4 email accounts that I check regularly all from the same Thunderbird email client. I have filters and folders for mailinglists. I have different accounts for different personas (personal, work, work and open source/fun). I get hundreds of mails per day, tens a day that I actually need to react to. I really don't have the problem of dreading to check my email. I know I'm not a manager of a startup or a big company, but then most people aren't.
- gm 14y ago
  I'm with you. What I dread is missing an email (spam filter, etc), not actually receiving messages.
- modarts 14y ago
  That underlies a major issue i'm seeing more of in the tech startup scene: Coming up with solutions to problems a large majority of users don't face. Blog after blog proclaiming that "Email is broken", "It's time to rethink email" etc, etc. No. Your users don't think that at all. They are happily chugging along, oblivious to the crises manufactured by neckbeards. Your value proposition needs to be reframed in terms of what your product can do on it's own merit; without the need to attempt to deprecate an existing technology/platform.
  - ljoshua 14y ago
    These are solutions to problems faced by middle- and upper-management, so there are real customers out there that have this real problem. The difficulty, however, is getting this cool, shiny solution into their existing corporate email workflow.
    - gm 14y ago
      Like I said in my other message: They already have it, and it's called MS Outlook. There's nothing mentioned in the advantages list that one cannot do readily with Outlook (under a different name for the feature in some cases).
    - 46Bit 14y ago
      Exactly. People seem to be designing entirely consumer focused experiences around a problem that's main pained group and largest collection of cash is the upper echelons of corporations.
      - amirmc 14y ago
        I think when you're at that level you're actually competing with humans. If I'm upper management and have too much incoming mail, I can hire a human to help me sift/prioritise/ignore as well as all the other things a human can help me with.
        jvermasheina 14y ago
- gmig 14y ago
  I totally wake up every morning and think, "I can't wait to check my email!"
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bobmanc 14y ago
  I don't know much about this project in particular but wouldn't the ability to have a web based client instead of a desktop app like Thunderbird or Outlook be useful? The ability to see all my mail from the browser on my many devices could be good.
modarts 14y ago
Your "Get Started" call to action should be an anchor/input/button with corresponding active/hover states.
rshlo 14y ago
I really can't understand why there is no trial period, maybe even for 14 days.
gm 14y ago
Sounds like Outlook to me? Ie, being careful of which emails to mark as read ("complete"), setting up reminders for later on individual emails, taking a message and adding it to a to-do list, etc... Or what would this offer that Outlook does not (other than not being a MS product). I'm being serious, not a smart ass. I would love to be able to leave Outlook...
sirclueless 14y ago
I appreciate that someone is making an email app for power users. It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future). On the other hand, I have grown so accustomed to Gmail's conversation view that there is no way I can give it up, even for a really good service, and it doesn't look like Mail Pilot has this feature. Gmail's conversation view is in my opinion a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry for other companies. 1) It's a tough natural language processing task, which means startups have trouble with it. 2) It requires someone algorithmically reading all my emails, which means it's such a PR nightmare to even try it that only Google is willing to weather the storm.
- natrius 14y ago
  "It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future)." I solved this problem by no longer using my email as a task management tool. Emails that contain a new task get forwarded to Asana, where tasks are easier to deal with. This approach is closer to the Unix philosophy of narrowly scoped tools that can be effectively combined, and it's a philosophy that hasn't failed me yet. "Gmail's conversation view is ... a tough natural language processing task" Is it? How is it more than a different way of presenting threads?
  - Derbasti 14y ago
    Technically, it is like threads, but it includes messages from other directories that belong to the thread, thus showing you the whole coversation including your answers and archived messages. Graphically, it shows all the messages in a continuous stream as opposed to only one message at a time. Since you now see all responses at once, there is no need for quoting any more, so quotes are collapsed. I don't use Gmail any more, but conversation view is all but essential for me, too.
- dotmanish 14y ago
  "It's a tough natural language processing task" It doesn't seem to be. For most part, it's the same e-mail headers that every other e-mail client uses to show threads: http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html
motoford 14y ago
I tried to sign up but it kept telling me my password was not good enough, although I was sure to include the required characters.
- knodi 14y ago
  Yes, I really hate this. I was going to pay the $60 but just because of their current password rule I decided against it.
  - motoford 14y ago
    I get your sarcasm. I missed the gotta pay to try, I thought I was signing up for a trial or a beta. My complaint isn't that they have a password rule, it's that my password met the requirements but they obviously are looking for something other than what they are rejecting mine on. I suspect it was length, but by then I was tired of trying to guess.
    - knodi 14y ago
      No, I'm serious. The password rule turned me away.
dmishe 14y ago
Horrible JPEG compression http://www.mailpilot.co/images/img5.jpg http://www.mailpilot.co/images/img5.jpg
scottru 14y ago
Does anyone know where we can find actual user reviews of this? I like the ballsiness of requiring payment just to see the beta, but I don't know what I'm getting for my $60.
jfarmer 14y ago
I paid $60 to try it out. Not worth it right now. It might, might be worth it when the desktop app is out. I wish I didn't fork over the money.
- JoelMarsh 14y ago
  Upvoted. Sorry to hear about your buyer's remorse, but thanks for paying it and posting your thoughts. Anything more specific? Likes and dislikes?
  - jfarmer 14y ago
    The web UI was slow and I didn't realize it was web-only until I bought it. Can I get a refund?
ew 14y ago
I'd love to know the reasoning behind the archaic password requirements. As a rule there's absolutely no way I'm changing my extremely secure password just for their app.
pknight 14y ago
I signed up oblivious to the fact that they were going to present a forced checkout step midway registration. What a sucky experience. I'm not going to spend $60 on a product I haven't even seen to a company who's policies I don't even know (information is very skimpy). On second thought I realized that letting a startup deal with my email is the exact opposite of what I want. It already sucks that we have to trust email providers with our communications, let alone let in another 3rd party that's a startup. Sticking with Thunderbird. I would like a better email client though.
bobmanc 14y ago
I think the issue some people have with email is they use their email client for things it wasn't designed to do. For instance a todo list or for reminders etc

30 points by alexobenauer 14y ago

So.. there's no way to try it without dropping $60? It looks nice, but I don't even buy operating systems without trying them first, let alone subscription services.

tanepiper 14y ago
This - asking me to commit $60 for a whole year, without even giving me 15 or 30 days to see if it works for me really puts me off. There seems to be an overconfidence from the developer that they have the perfect solution to something that isn't really a problem.
- Lewisham 14y ago
  And it's not a one-time payment, they want a subscription payment every year, which is incredibly obnoxious for a desktop app.

mapleoin 14y ago

From the about page: Email is in need of a fresh start. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I can’t wait to check my email!” Am I the only person who has no problem managing their email? I'm a software developer and have 4 email accounts that I check regularly all from the same Thunderbird email client. I have filters and folders for mailinglists. I have different accounts for different personas (personal, work, work and open source/fun). I get hundreds of mails per day, tens a day that I actually need to react to. I really don't have the problem of dreading to check my email. I know I'm not a manager of a startup or a big company, but then most people aren't.

gm 14y ago
I'm with you. What I dread is missing an email (spam filter, etc), not actually receiving messages.
modarts 14y ago
That underlies a major issue i'm seeing more of in the tech startup scene: Coming up with solutions to problems a large majority of users don't face. Blog after blog proclaiming that "Email is broken", "It's time to rethink email" etc, etc. No. Your users don't think that at all. They are happily chugging along, oblivious to the crises manufactured by neckbeards. Your value proposition needs to be reframed in terms of what your product can do on it's own merit; without the need to attempt to deprecate an existing technology/platform.
- ljoshua 14y ago
  These are solutions to problems faced by middle- and upper-management, so there are real customers out there that have this real problem. The difficulty, however, is getting this cool, shiny solution into their existing corporate email workflow.
  - gm 14y ago
    Like I said in my other message: They already have it, and it's called MS Outlook. There's nothing mentioned in the advantages list that one cannot do readily with Outlook (under a different name for the feature in some cases).
  - 46Bit 14y ago
    Exactly. People seem to be designing entirely consumer focused experiences around a problem that's main pained group and largest collection of cash is the upper echelons of corporations.
    - amirmc 14y ago
      I think when you're at that level you're actually competing with humans. If I'm upper management and have too much incoming mail, I can hire a human to help me sift/prioritise/ignore as well as all the other things a human can help me with.
      - jvermasheina 14y ago
gmig 14y ago
I totally wake up every morning and think, "I can't wait to check my email!"
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bobmanc 14y ago
I don't know much about this project in particular but wouldn't the ability to have a web based client instead of a desktop app like Thunderbird or Outlook be useful? The ability to see all my mail from the browser on my many devices could be good.

modarts 14y ago

Your "Get Started" call to action should be an anchor/input/button with corresponding active/hover states.

rshlo 14y ago

I really can't understand why there is no trial period, maybe even for 14 days.

gm 14y ago

Sounds like Outlook to me? Ie, being careful of which emails to mark as read ("complete"), setting up reminders for later on individual emails, taking a message and adding it to a to-do list, etc... Or what would this offer that Outlook does not (other than not being a MS product). I'm being serious, not a smart ass. I would love to be able to leave Outlook...

sirclueless 14y ago

I appreciate that someone is making an email app for power users. It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future). On the other hand, I have grown so accustomed to Gmail's conversation view that there is no way I can give it up, even for a really good service, and it doesn't look like Mail Pilot has this feature. Gmail's conversation view is in my opinion a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry for other companies. 1) It's a tough natural language processing task, which means startups have trouble with it. 2) It requires someone algorithmically reading all my emails, which means it's such a PR nightmare to even try it that only Google is willing to weather the storm.

natrius 14y ago
"It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future)." I solved this problem by no longer using my email as a task management tool. Emails that contain a new task get forwarded to Asana, where tasks are easier to deal with. This approach is closer to the Unix philosophy of narrowly scoped tools that can be effectively combined, and it's a philosophy that hasn't failed me yet. "Gmail's conversation view is ... a tough natural language processing task" Is it? How is it more than a different way of presenting threads?
- Derbasti 14y ago
  Technically, it is like threads, but it includes messages from other directories that belong to the thread, thus showing you the whole coversation including your answers and archived messages. Graphically, it shows all the messages in a continuous stream as opposed to only one message at a time. Since you now see all responses at once, there is no need for quoting any more, so quotes are collapsed. I don't use Gmail any more, but conversation view is all but essential for me, too.
dotmanish 14y ago
"It's a tough natural language processing task" It doesn't seem to be. For most part, it's the same e-mail headers that every other e-mail client uses to show threads: http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html

motoford 14y ago

I tried to sign up but it kept telling me my password was not good enough, although I was sure to include the required characters.

knodi 14y ago
Yes, I really hate this. I was going to pay the $60 but just because of their current password rule I decided against it.
- motoford 14y ago
  I get your sarcasm. I missed the gotta pay to try, I thought I was signing up for a trial or a beta. My complaint isn't that they have a password rule, it's that my password met the requirements but they obviously are looking for something other than what they are rejecting mine on. I suspect it was length, but by then I was tired of trying to guess.
  - knodi 14y ago
    No, I'm serious. The password rule turned me away.

dmishe 14y ago

Horrible JPEG compression http://www.mailpilot.co/images/img5.jpg http://www.mailpilot.co/images/img5.jpg

scottru 14y ago

Does anyone know where we can find actual user reviews of this? I like the ballsiness of requiring payment just to see the beta, but I don't know what I'm getting for my $60.

jfarmer 14y ago

I paid $60 to try it out. Not worth it right now. It might, might be worth it when the desktop app is out. I wish I didn't fork over the money.

JoelMarsh 14y ago
Upvoted. Sorry to hear about your buyer's remorse, but thanks for paying it and posting your thoughts. Anything more specific? Likes and dislikes?
- jfarmer 14y ago
  The web UI was slow and I didn't realize it was web-only until I bought it. Can I get a refund?

ew 14y ago

I'd love to know the reasoning behind the archaic password requirements. As a rule there's absolutely no way I'm changing my extremely secure password just for their app.

pknight 14y ago

I signed up oblivious to the fact that they were going to present a forced checkout step midway registration. What a sucky experience. I'm not going to spend $60 on a product I haven't even seen to a company who's policies I don't even know (information is very skimpy). On second thought I realized that letting a startup deal with my email is the exact opposite of what I want. It already sucks that we have to trust email providers with our communications, let alone let in another 3rd party that's a startup. Sticking with Thunderbird. I would like a better email client though.

bobmanc 14y ago

I think the issue some people have with email is they use their email client for things it wasn't designed to do. For instance a todo list or for reminders etc