Will Mail.app support message receipts in Lion?

OK, thanks. Now I have to find it...somewhere among the dozens of pages in today's browser history for the WWDC links I checked. Ah, well...I'll know soon enough. Lion's out next month.

Thanks again.

OK...I found it, and I see now that it wasn't about Mail. My mistake. It's in Rachel King's blog on ZDNet:

WWDC 2011: Apple iOS 5 integrates Twitter, sports new notification menu

Here's the relevant section, from the third paragraph:

The most surprising feature revealed during the keynote was iMessage, a new real-time messaging service that lets iOS users send texts, photos and videos to other iOS users over Wi-Fi and 3G. Recipients are notified of incoming messages using the new aforementioned push notification system, which sends the message to all of the owner’s iOSdevices. Much like BlackBerry Messenger, iOS users can receive delivery and read receipts... (emphasis added)

Thanks for mentioning that it's not in the keynote presentation. I didn't have time to watch it. I'm not surprised that they wouldn't mention it. I don't suppose it's a feature that's in very high demand, as far as email is concerned. Outside of the relatively small circle of professional associates I work with, any mention of the subject of message receipts is almost universally greeted with the response, "Huh...whuzzat?"

I admit that I don't get it. Why wouldn't you want to know whether your messages have been received?

Beats me...but so far, it's not a question Apple has been inclined to answer. I've asked. 😉

Barney:

Your answer is reasonable if I don't have any business sending you email in the first place, or if you don't want me to know whether you've received my message. If that's the case, then I agree. No one is under any obligation to acknowledge a message he never requested, or that doesn't concern something of mutual interest to the communicants...by their own subjective determination. I'm fiercely protective of my own privacy too.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the condition wherein communicants WANT to know whether they've received each other's messages; for example, to keep important messages from falling through the cracks. It happens, you know. Receipts (and especially, the absence of receipts) have saved me and my associates from honest mistakes and missing messages more times than I can count. But if the ability to request and acknowledge receipts isn't even there, they're out of luck...and living with ignorance about the status of their communications.

Besides, every civilized mail client I know of enables the user to set a preference that notifies the recipient that the sender has requested a receipt, and asks whether he whether he wants to honor that request for any given incoming message. If, in your judgment, it's none of my business whether you read my message, you don't have to acknowledge receiving it.

In fact, most mail clients enable the user to automatically deny all receipt requests. Receipt acknowledgment is turned off as the default condition. If you don't want to use it, then you don't have to do anything. The only folks who would even know about it would be those who want to use it.

So, I still don't see how having the feature available is a problem for anyone...but maybe I'm missing something.

Good suggestion. In fact, that's what I already do if I'm communicating with folks who use Mail.app and I need to know whether they've received it. But it would be cleaner (and easier for users) to have a receipt system built in.

Anyhow, I'm not trying to convince you. If you don't need message receipts, I wouldn't expect you to find it a useful feature. Thanks for the discussion.

Vito

Barney-15E wrote:

Features take time and resources to implement. You just can't magically make them work.

Wow...what on Earth gave you the impression that I don't already understand that?

Barney-15E wrote:

If a lot of people were clammoring for that feature, I suppose they'd implement it.

Sorry, but that's not news to me either. Evidently, you didn't read the part where I wrote,

"I don't suppose it's a feature that's in very high demand, as far as email is concerned."

I expect that a great many people are NOT clamoring for that feature. I happen to agree that Apple is usually responsive to customer demand for software features, unless there is some other objection, policy, or prejudice against providing it.

I suspect that the latter is the case here. I (and others I know) have been requesting support for receipts since Mail.app first appeared. Implementing that feature within that time frame would not require any supernatural processes or superhuman effort. I think they just don't want to do it. That's their prerogative.