Posts tagged with "mail"

.Mail is Coming To Your Dock

Remember Tobias van Schneider’s redesign of the classic email client? It’s happening.

.Mail’s main features include:

  • Actionsteps, which lets you prioritize mail without abusing favorites, flags, or labels in a typical email client.
  • Centralized attachments, putting email attachements in one easy to find place for recollection.
  • Integrated notifications, which removes the clutter of everyday emails like Facebook updates or Amazon receipts by filtering them into clever notification icons.
  • Personalized messages, showing pictures of your friends and company branding alongside the email’s subject line.

You can sign up to know when .Mail (pronounced ‘dot mail’) is ready by visiting dotmailapp.com, or by following Tobias on Twitter at @schneidertobias.

Gmail for iOS Is Back In The App Store

Following an unsuccessful launch on November 2, Google has re-released its official Gmail app for iOS in the App Store, which was pulled due to a bug that affected push notifications. In spite of the criticism received by the app, it appears Google didn’t make any substantial changes, as reported by this version’s changelog:

If you already have the Gmail app 1.0.1 released on 2 Nov, you will need to uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.

We’re currently re-testing the Gmail app for iOS and we’ll update this post with more details if necessary. Update: push notifications are now working in this version (as you can see I have a badge on my Home screen), but there are no new features. The app is still web-based as in the first version, with no support for multiple accounts and poor scrolling performances, among other issues.

Download Gmail for iOS here.

Native Gmail App From Google Coming To The iPhone Soon?

If you’ve been yearning for a good, native, Gmail app for the iPhone, you might not have to wait much longer. MG Siegler claims that Google “is on the verge of launching their native Gmail app” and have likely already submitted it to Apple for review.

Although Google has a good web version of Gmail that is optimised for the iPhone and is also supported by iOS’ inbuilt Mail app, many have long wanted a fully native Gmail app and experience on iOS. Probably the biggest reason for a native Gmail app is push notifications (in the native Mail app, Gmail only supports fetching every 15, 30 or 60 minutes). Yet according to Siegler’s sources, the app is also “pretty fantastic” - something that many users of Android’s Gmail app have also often commented on. His understanding is that this is Google’s first iOS app since they began their recent commitment to design and that “all indications point to it being a good [app]”.

The native Gmail app will likely bring other key functionality as well: like Priority Inbox and one-click starring of messages. Other possibilities include some of the stuff Google is about to roll out for Gmail proper: like contact icons, better threading, and deep searching functionality. Maybe there will even be some Google+ integration, which Google is also hard at work on for Gmail.

The big question is whether Apple will approve the app, because to date they have rejected alternative email apps that would compete against the native Mail app. However, Siegler believes Apple probably will approve it, in which case it could mean that we could also soon see other third party Mail apps on iOS. One such example could be Sparrow for iPhone, after the developers revealed in August they have started development on such an app. In an interview with Business Insider in August, Dominique Leca from Sparrow noted that it would be highly inconsistent for Apple to continue to reject alternative Mail apps when Apple has since allowed replacements for Safari on iOS in recent months.

[Via parislemon]

iOS 5: Improvements In Safari, Camera, Photos, Mail, Calendar, Music & Video

Today’s release of iOS 5 sees the inclusion of new apps such as Reminders, significant upgrades to existing apps such as the integration of iMessage in Messages and the introduction of iCloud, which is set to change the way we use our iOS devices. Yet amidst all these significant changes to the iOS platform, Apple hasn’t forgotten about the apps that have existed since day 1 of the first iPhone.

The Safari, Mail, Camera, Calendar, Music and Video apps have all received updates in iOS 5 and the updates range from addressing common complaints, tweaking the user interfaces, adding iCloud support to adding features that improve productivity and usability. Be sure to jump through the break to view the entire overview of changes to these apps.

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Getting Started with Mail in Lion

Maybe you’re new to Lion (welcome newly acquainted Mac users), or maybe you’re not much of a Mail user to begin with. Well, “Hello From Cupertino, CA”! Much of the hype around Lion has revolved around the iOS-inspired changes made to Mail, which aims to make reading messages, composing email, and navigating through conversations really easy. To do this, Mail likes to hide the Mailbox List, while getting you comfortable with the new Favorites Bar. Lion’s new vertical message list and message-preview pane better make use of wide-screen displays, especially while full-screen. If you’re not familiar with this terminology yet, don’t worry. Grab a cup of coffee, your favorite morning or afternoon pastry, and get ready to set up Lion with your account.

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Postbox 2.5 Released: New UI, Faster, Lots Of New Features

Earlier today, we published an article detailing some of the interface changes set to be introduced in Postbox 2.5, a major update for the popular alternative email application for Mac and Windows that, among other things, was teased by the developers as one of the biggest rewrites of the app to date. With a series of blog posts, the Postbox team had in fact already announced that the client would get an overall improved interface, new toolbar icons on the Mac, a completely re-imagined message view, and a vertical pane view to take advantage of widescreen monitors – admittedly one of the glaring omissions from the previous versions of Postbox. Read more

Configure An iCloud Email Account on Snow Leopard

Magician Software has posted a handy tip to configure an iCloud email account on Mail.app for Snow Leopard which, with the provided instructions, should work on any email program that supports IMAP as well. With the iCloud settings panel on iOS 5, Apple offers the possibility to associate a new iCloud-based @me.com email address to an Apple ID. So, for example, say you have an Apple ID with your Gmail account, you can create a new iCloud address to go alongside the Apple ID you use for your iTunes purchases, apps, and everything else. Unlike old @me.com email accounts that will need to migrate to the new iCloud infrastructure, these new addresses offered on iOS devices are already running on iCloud, allowing to receive and send messages using iOS 5 and OS X Lion DP 4 with an iCloud add-on, not available for older OS X versions.

For other OSes and email programs, Magician Software explains you’ll have to configure a custom IMAP server and MobileMe SMTP to get iCloud’s email up and running. On Snow Leopard’s Mail.app, for instance, you’ll have to start by adding a new account (@me.com) and using the same password of your Apple ID. In fact, iOS 5 doesn’t let you choose a password for now, it just simply assigns your Apple ID’s existing one to the new iCloud email address.

You will receive an error saying that it couldn’t reach the mail.me.com server, just ignore it and hit continue. At this part, it should be very similar to setting up a regular IMAP email. I can’t show you the next screen on setting up the incoming and outgoing servers as Lion doesn’t let me because of the support for iCloud. What you will need to do is change the drop down menu from the top (Currently saying: MobileMe) to IMAP, and changing the mail.me.com to

p02-imap.mail.me.com

the username should just be the name before the @me.com and the password, or course, your password.

Ignore all the errors that Mail.app will display, and use “smtp.me.com” (without quotes) for the SMTP settings. Take the account online, and you should be able to use your iCloud email account on any IMAP-enabled email client. As Apple explains, mail counts against the 5 GB of free storage provided with every iCloud account. [via]

MailTabs Brings Safari-like Tabs to Mail.app

If you use Mail.app on your Mac desktop to stay on top of your inboxes and messages and you’re that kind of user who opens a lot of Mail windows to navigate between accounts, folders and new messages, perhaps you’ve thought about getting a new email client with support for tabs. In web browsers, tabs are the best way to open multiple links at once without being forced to clutter your screen with dozens of standalone windows (although some people still prefer to keep separate sets of tabs organized in different windows); furthermore, new solutions like Mozilla’s Panorama for Firefox enable us to literally open hundreds of tabs and visually switch between them retaining some free space in the toolbar. Tabs have basically changed the way we browse. How about enabling them in Mail.app now?

That’s what a new plugin called MailTabs does. Available for free and supporting auto-updates (that means you won’t have to download a new version every time), once installed MailTabs will put Safari-like tabs in Mail for OS X. New messages, conversations and inboxes will open in a new tab sitting below the top toolbar instead of a new Mail window. The UI is far from perfect in this first release, but tabs really work and sessions are even restored when you close Mail.app and open it again. When you send a new message from within a tab, the tab is automatically closed as soon as you hit Send. The plugin has no other configuration options available in the Settings, and I’m hoping the developers will add further customization possibilities in the future updates. MailTabs also seems to have a small footprint on CPU resources and RAM.

If you’re a fan of plugins like TotalFinder and, overall, tabs for web browsers, you should try MailTabs. It’s a free download here.

Sparrow 1.1 Is Out: IMAP Support, Priority Inbox and More

Since its release date weeks ago, Sparrow for Mac has quickly become many people’s favorite way to access Gmail from the desktop. With an intuitive user interface resembling the original Tweetie for Mac and support for several Gmail functions like labels and archive, Sparrow has sold thousands of copies in the Mac App Store enabling the developers to focus on bringing additional features to the app.

With the release of version 1.1 today, Sparrow is once again redefining the rules of Mail clients for OS X: Sparrow 1.1 contains several bug fixes and stability improvements, but most of all it adds general IMAP compatibility, MobileMe support and lots more features like Gmail’s Priority Inbox.

If you’re a Gmail user, Sparrow now lets you switch between the regular inbox, the Priority one and unread items from a dropdown menu under the top toolbar. The feature is very convenient as it further integrates Gmail with the desktop in a way no other apps did before. Switching between different types of inboxes is effortless and takes seconds. Another Gmail improvement is a fix for archive’s synchronization, which was pretty slow on version 1.0.

Gmail aside, Sparrow 1.1 is a complete revamp of the application. In the redesigned preferences panel, you can now set a signature for each of your aliases, and a signature can be made default with the click of a button; a format bar in the compose windows lets you choose fonts, sizes and styles without opening an external window or the system’s default font picker. The “minimal mode” – available in the Preferences – is another new option that lets users hide the message preview in the main window – quite handy if you don’t want to see a preview of the message while scrolling the list. On a related note, scrolling performances have been improved as well and now Sparrow feels much more responsive.

Sparrow 1.1 is a huge update that contains many other improvements like better HTML and CSS rendering, contact grouping options and Gravatar support, multitouch gestures (I love the three-finger swipe to open a message in its dedicated panel) and a “mark as spam” shortcut. The app is available in the App Store at $9.99, and it’s a powerful alternative to Mail.app – now with IMAP support and deeper Gmail compatibility. More screenshots below. Read more