An acquisition that probably no one expected. The alternative email client Sparrow, which you probably all know, was acquired by Google. He paid less than $25 million for it.
Information directly from the Sparrow developer website:
We are excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!
We care deeply about how people communicate and have done our best to provide you with the most intuitive and convenient email experience.
Now, we're joining the Gmail team to achieve a bigger vision—one that we think we can better achieve with Google.
We would like to say a big thank you to all our users who have supported us, advised us and given us invaluable feedback and allowed us to make a better email app. While we're working on new things at Google, we'll continue to keep Sparrow available and support our users.
We had a perfect ride and can't thank you enough.
Full speed ahead!
House of Lec
CEO
Sparrow
Sparrow was first launched for Mac OS X. There was also an iPhone version in early 2012, which we talk about here on Apple they wrote. Leca also said that support and important updates will continue to be available for Sparrow, but new features will no longer appear. It is not at all clear whether the promised push function for emails will be added to the iOS application or will be pushed to the back burner.
At the end of last year, Google launched its Gmail app for iOS, which was received very coldly by users. Here's what Google had to say about the Sparrow acquisition:
The team working on the Sparrow email client has always put its users first and focused on creating a simple and intuitive user interface. We look forward to bringing them on board the Gmail team where they will work on new projects.
Another cool service/app that Google buried with an acquisition. Started with Meeb 9 days ago and now Sparrow... It's a shame.
Yes… Too bad. I resisted Sparrow for a long time, but eventually fell in love with it on both Mac and iPhone. I was looking forward to the iPad version :(
It didn't interest me because of a lot of limitations on iOS, but I use it on Mac both at home and at work... Built in Mail.app always seemed to me to be overpaid, like a Mac outlook... However, Sparrow still had a lot to improve and unfortunately we will never see it again. If only they would hand the program over to someone who wants to continue publishing and improving it.
that's all well and good, but where is Puma OS X? it's already 20. :-(
About 25. after announcing Apple's financial results for the previous quarter.
Is there an adequate substitute? Mail doesn't work very well with gmail. the way sparrow uses labels, tagging and moving to spam is irreplaceable thanks to the fact that it is a 1:1 imap
There is no need to look for a replacement if you are satisfied with the fact that they will only release fixes for serious errors and not add new functions.
so the promised push, apps for ipad will probably really be missing. I don't like to use different solutions on different platforms. no matter what, apple responded immediately and returned my money for the version for mac and iphone
Yes, that's another thing, not that I would regret the 200 CZK I paid for Sparrow, but they must have made outrageous millions, so I don't understand why they necessarily had to get into Google... Besides, being Dom Leca, I'd rather be the CEO of a small company than be an ordinary employee in Google. It's a shame that Sparrow didn't buy Apple, I wouldn't blame it at all ;) quite the opposite.
that's right, I communicated with them for a while and sent them a few bugs from the lite version. they were happy and, after a question about the iPad version, they confirmed that they are working on it and that I can completely switch to Sparrow (ipad, iphone, mac) well, sup week for that, here is google-sparrow
I understand that google needs it because their clients are lagging behind and the guys will bring new blood, but this was a pretty low-key behavior when they gave a discount event to lure people in...
Well, I don't see it as bad because I use Gmail, so I think that I will still have certain other advantages to draw from it, new Gmail functions, etc. what makes me a little sad is that it's not like Google wants to continue developing and Sparrow, so they just shouldn't recolor the Icon as it is in the image of this article. I don't think that Google makes completely bad applications, for example Chrome for Mac, Win and iOS are top applications with a good design. Well, it will all be a little different, so who knows how it will turn out. They didn't even answer me when I wrote to them, and that was about a month ago. I was wondering if they will add support for certificates to Sparrow for Mac, Mail.app has that support logically, but Sparrow does not and will never have it again.
yes no about that at google i was talking about ios app for ipad. like this, everything is as it should be for sending one e-mail, but more e-mails like the browser, ios just can't do it and the mail application is not enough, but we'll see what comes of it
But iOS Mail.app can basically have an unlimited number of email accounts, or did I misunderstand what you meant??
the end of the thread didn't allow me to answer anymore. however, the mail application cannot work through imap with gmail labels. I can't simply mark a gmail message as spam so that it is reflected directly in the account. if so, I'm happy to learn, but in general, using smart folders and other folders is inefficient if the same content is not available on the website or in another device
It's a bit more complicated with Mail.app, but it's not like it can't handle labels at all, because the label on GMail is always its own pseudo-folder, if you jump to the Mailboxes parent folder in Mail.app, the whole folders for accounts are below, not just inboxes and there you will also find folders for labels and Spam, etc. you can also move the message there directly from the Spam folder, the question is whether Google will understand that you mean that it is spam. I've been using it this way for a long time and so far I haven't had a problem, and IMAP is of course the number 1 thing, I can't imagine the impossibility of having emails with IMAP and iOS Mail.app IMAP completely problem-free, and it has probably been able to from the beginning.