Email. It’s all about making things easier and more efficient.
Isn’t it?
Incidentally, I am talking with some smart people. They will redesign this blog to separate the various flavours of nonsense that I write.
More on that another time, but if you have no interest in productivity or IT, stop reading now.
I have posted, well, whinged about Email clients in a couple of other posts. Here and here.
The essence is this: I want to have an email client that sits on my Mac, my iPad and my iPhone and that plays nice with my Gmail and syncs perfectly.
Why?
Over the last 10 years, far from making me more efficient, email has become the biggest single drag on my time and productivity.
Email has become a barbarian horde. Honestly. It has.
Go away to a desert island for a week.
Come back and turn your computer on; instantly there are hundreds, thousands even, of emails waiting for your attention.
How I am trying to manage this, I am going to put into a separate post, as this one is getting longer and longer.
I have tried a lot of different clients and come across some brilliant apps. There are literally thousands of email clients. Many of them however are designed for specific devices.
Handle for example is a cracking wee app for the iPhone. However, it doesn’t have a big brother for the Mac and it wants to be in charge of the calendar, which is a whole new kettle of fish.
Inbox by Google is great on iPhone and iPad. Again, there is no version for the Mac.
I thought that I had found the answer with Mail Pilot, but alas the apps were not syncing; so mails kept reappearing. The exact opposite of what I am trying to achieve.
I wrote here before that Mail Pilot had not responded to my anguished request for help. I was hasty. I received this;
Hi Stuart,
Sorry for the delayed reply. Sometimes after initially installing, the apps can take some time to synchronize. Has this issue resolved?
Thanks!
-Josh
Co-founder + COO
I have gone back explaining that it got resolved after three days by my not using it anymore – but as yet, no further reply.
I have now settled on a mail client that I had used for a while a year ago. Mailbox
The app on the iPad and iPhone is simply brilliant.
The one for the Mac is strictly speaking still a ‘Beta’ which is a version in testing. It is pretty good too, if a little prone to the occasional ‘moment’ or crash, as I believe a ‘moment’ should properly be called.
Firstly, I should point out that if you want to manage email from work; that probably comes off an Exchange server and Mailbox is not for you (at the moment). Exchange is not supported.
Mailbox allows me to defer mails, so that they disappear from my inbox and return at appointed times. It allows me to archive or delete instantly, or to add a mail to a ‘list’.
The app syncs across my devices seamlessly. It is a joy to use, on touch screens in particular. Swipe here, swipe there – all done.
It is a really intuitive piece of kit, that for now at least, lives on all of my machines.
The company behind Mailbox was snapped up by DropBox before the app was on the market.
Online support is thus far excellent and I have had no crash problems.
As this post sat in my drafts folder awaiting my approval, the developers issued new releases of the Mac client. Three in quick succession.
Crashes left, right and centre.
However, it is encouraging to see the app improving and becoming more stable.
I am hopeful that it will soon be a full blown version. Check it out here.
