Why do we still have no pro-grade email app for the mac platform?

if any developers read this, I am begging you: create this product. I've read every email app review I can find, visited a ton of blogs, user forums, etc..., and I think there is a huge demand for this kind of an app. If I did such coding, I would take the project on myself, but I'm just a user, not a developer.

Hope it happens someday. From my perspective, it's sorely needed.

That's what's great about free market capitalism. If there was such a demand as you think there is, there would be a product. The truth is there is no demand.

There's one that was just released (can't remember the name) recently with great fanfare, but it doesn't (or didn't) support IMAP.

an attractive, Mac-like user interface. Could Mail get any uglier? Why yes, yes it could, we now have Mail in Lion! Holy crap, were they incentivized to make it as dull and unattractive an app as they possibly could?

It's an interface that displays text-based messages with a list system to pick from the messages to display. Really, what do you want it to look like? Hey, maybe all this spam will look better if it's got unicorns crapping rainbows all around it.

Really? It doesn't look good. You've got some good points on the lack of some of the features provided by third-party developers (but why isn't that sufficient), did you just think you needed one more point to carp on?

I don't believe you are alone. I've seen people clammoring for a different email client for as long as Apple has offered one. However, for the client you espouse, I just don't think there is much of a market. (I see you sort of conceded that earlier). Most people don't need all of that and the add-ons cover the niche market you want (except of course the unicorns).

I just looked at Postbox's web page. To me, it doesn't look any different than Mail.

I also looked at MailMate, but their website only shows little snippets, which also look a lot like Mail.

I just don't see much of a difference (at least none I'd care about paying for).

Sparrow was the one I remembered seeing, but it advertises itself as the opposite of what you want--minimalism. It's doing ok, at #52, but doesn't sound like the kind of thing you are after. Nor would I consider it a smash success with iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers all well above it in the rankings.

Here's an idea for how to change Mail.

Email applications have all worked on the BBS model since pre-web days, as far as I can tell. Threaded, by subject line, chronologically. Same with the forums we now use, like this one. Very two dimensional.

How 'bout three dimensional mail? It would be more like structured hypertext, in that it could go off in other directions. Someone replying about the rainbow expelling unicorns, for example, could follow that threat off in another direction, while other points discussed here could go in still another direction.

Or look at how gmail has tried to change things: rather than one message in one folder, an old and tired desktop metaphor, it has switched to labels (functionally the same as tags), which allows a one-many relationship in that each message can have several labels/folders (wish they hadn't used folder icons; makes it confusing). Much more useful, but virtually ignored in Mail, which supports the folder metaphor (yeah I know with IMAP you can have one message in several gmail folders/labels but its not very intuitive for new users).

And, seven months later.

1. Thunderbird is shutting down.

2. Sparrow is owned by The Google.

conejo61 wrote:

............. I hope that someone who is actually interested in this subject reads and joins the conversation.

That could be me 😎

When I discovered, in Snow Leopard, that Apple Mail can't do group emails to large numbers of people, and when I later discovered, in Lion, that things were getting worse, not better, with the MacOS, I reverted to Snow and am staying there.

As far as an industrial-strength mail application is concerned, I've gone with Gmail. It works. And it does big groups of people (I sometimes need to send the same email to 50/60 people.)

OK I know ... it's Google. But at this point I hate Google less than I hate Apple. Give Gmail a try.

According to the original poster's criteria of what defines a professional e-mail system, Gmail would be a complete failure. Gmail is just a web client for Google's e-mail scanning and targeted advertising service.

etresoft wrote:

According to the original poster's criteria of what defines a professional e-mail system, Gmail would be a complete failure.

I use it for professional purposes. What's your better alternative? I'd like to find one.

I use Apple Mail. I have been using it for "professional purposes" for years. It connects to my own POP/IMAP servers, Gmail, Exchange, iCloud, and even Lotus Notes.