Google acquires Apple-oriented email client Sparrow ahead of iPad app release - Page 2

Waste of money, sparrow was shite unless you used gmail anyways.

 

Oh, I haven't. I use Mail everywhere; no third-party stuff.

 

But I don't have to use an alternative to know that Google buying up one of them is bad news for everyone.

 

I'm not saying it doesn't have it's uses.  For the average end user however, the whole concept of "downloading your mail from the server" just to read it is poison IMO.  

 

I wish I had the several years of my life back that I spent explaining to PhD's that all of their email was deleted off the server and that yes, it was their fault, and ... no, being smart and having a PhD doesn't mean you can't make colossally stupid mistakes with POP email.  

Googleguy praises a Google product. News at 11.

Why? I use Sparrow with my Google Apps account so I imagine it's only going to get better now!

Such moves are an admission that you can do no better.

 

Basically, Google is admitting that their interface sucks for Gmail.

 

So they had to hire some Apple developers.

 

LOL.

 

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

 

But for goodness sakes, stop stealing in the future and how about giving back what you have already taken...

Google Chrome, Mail, Docs and Sites are crap?

I guess that makes you his alter ego since you only seem to bad mouth Google for some reason.

 

Totally agree.  It wasn't some strange "Well, Jobs chose not to buy them and gave Microsoft the opportunity to screw Apple."  Apple wasn't looking to get into the games business, and as evidence of that: They haven't to the present day.

 

Microsoft had a very valid reason to buy a studio, particularly when they saw a strong title that they could lock up for the XBox platform. Obviously it was a buzzkill for the Apple community to see the leading Mac game studio suddenly owned by Microsoft, but making it some malicious personal game seems like a stretch.

deleted

Edited by MacRulez - 1/21/13 at 2:59pm

 

Yup I remember finding that out and then posting that on here and no one believed me, then later that day the news was public.

 

Er, why?

 

 

Speaking for myself, Mail on iOS works beautifully, whether it's with y iCloud mail, Gmail or Hotmail. It's just . . . clean. 

 

On a Mac, I find the experience of Mail.app + a Gmail account to be a bit messy. The left sidebar - the way it's organized - doesn't provide me with a clean separation between accounts. It looks rather jumbled. 

 

Mail.app with the everyday Apple mail (iCloud) account works great, though. So my only concern is having a better way to use Gmail than the Mail app in OS X. So far, it's been Sparrow.

B.S. Google has a lot great, useful services like youtube, finance (way better than yahoo, IMO), translate, drive, and calendar. You can be a fanboy and still recognize the contribution of companies like google make to internet. 

Sparrow for iOS is shit. Deleted it 30 minutes after downloading.

Very few posters in this forum understand that....

 

I'm… trying to think of one. It's all so marred by their policies (or the societal change for the worse) that it's troublesome. 

The only app that you mentioned which is any good is YouTube, and they bought that.

What's wrong with translate, drive and calendar? I use them all the time and find them quite good.

Are you saying that the product is good in functionality but their policies make them inherently bad?

 

I'm saying that I had a post written up and then I was commenting on a single quibble I had with the new editor (which once again works with modern Safari) and Safari itself crashed, deleting what I'd written, so until I stop being internally steamed, this post will have to suffice.

 

You're close; I'll say that now.

In a similar vein Facebook has acquired Acrylic Software, developer's of popular iOS apps like Pulp for newsfeeds and . . .

 

...Wallet, for iOS and Mac, that helps users keep track of passwords, license keys, credit cards and other sensitive information.

Facebook snuggles in ever deeper tighter in Apple, Mac and iOS. The two employees who comprise Acrylic say they won't be taking the current Wallet data with them to Facebook, instead starting from scratch.

 

http://blog.acrylicapps.com/post/27635101056/our-next-project-facebook

Edited by Gatorguy - 7/20/12 at 4:02pm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57476739-93/google-snatches-up-sparrow-team-to-work-on-gmail/

 

 

 

 

Paying for abandonware isn't *that* bad. You're still getting something for your money: the app "as is." You just won't be getting any further updates for it. 

 

Some folks can live with that, some folks can't. 

 

But one thing is for sure: It is abandonware now, in its current state. 

Yes.

Where 'some reason' is 'well-established evidence that Google has no respect for privacy or intellectual property' as well as products that work poorly or not at all.

OTOH, his praise for Google products stems from nothing more than them coming from Google.

I will never forget Microsoft's acquisition of Rare. It killed off one of Nintedo's best third party developers. None of their subsequent outputs were remotely the same. Nor were they accessible to the fan base that were responsible for their success.

I still find Gmail a truly excellent experience, primarily because of conversation view. It's a million times better than microsoft outlook, which i'm forced to use at work; too much crud in the interface, slow ass search and the inexplicable archiving process. iOS mail plays nice with gmail but I'd prefer they used labels instead of folders because it's inefficient to think of digital content only being accessible in one place at any one time.

I would love to use Outlook as my work has Lotus Notes, which is a terrible experience.

Postbox?

 

http://www.postbox-inc.com

 

http://www.postbox-inc.com/blog

 

I'll be trying this out. 

Well that sums it up for me! Pretty much what I thought you would say..

Well, I don't have a PhD...I have a BFA and I have been using the same POP3 account for eons. I have never had an issue with downloading my email and using options to delete it from the server once read. If it's important enough, I save it along with others in an .mbox archive. I have never lost any email before. POP3 may not be your cup of tea, but it works fine for me. Maybe I'm not the average end user. 

This is another sad story like Freehand.

 

 

How so? I don't recall Apple having to have the need to enter every market.  As Steve Jobs said, we didn't enter search. Further, I don't recall Apple being found guilty of illegal anti-competitive behavior like Microsoft was. Google sure is being accused of such actions, and settling with governments over such actions. I don't' see Apple settling such actions. 

Your answer is right they weren't in the gaming industry so they had to no reason in particular to buy Bungie but the fact of the matter is they passed on it. You can look up the stories that were published back in 2010 that Steve literally blew up when he had heard Microsoft bought them.

Bungie was flailing and Halo would not have been made at all without a cash infusion. Steve Jobs passed on Bungie prior to actually being sold, then was foaming mad when he had heard Microsoft purchased Bungie and the subsequent killing off of OSX Halo. This is pretty common history in gaming actually so there is no revisionism here...

Simplify was a company that provided a streaming service from your home Mac to your iPhone. The desktop app was free, the iPhone app was $3.99. You could stream any of your entire iTunes library to you unlimited data iPhone, anywhere in the world.

Just after Google created Android, it bought Simplify to create the streaming service for android only, & killed off the entire 'paid for' Mac streaming service. Google showed their hand of integrity & business ethics early on. I don't expect it to be different with Google's acquisition of Sparrow.

What about when Apple bought Siri then decided you couldn't have it on the iPhone 4 afterwards? It could clearly run on the iPhone 4 as it was an app in the app store before Apple bought.

 

What about Apple only allowing the iPad 3 run as a hotspot when the iPad 1/2 could also be used as a hotspot but Apple wont allow it? The iPad 2 should have had the hotspot at a minimum.

 

 

 

i have absolutely no idea. i tried "imo", ebuddy and im+  and they were all horrific. i actually started experiencing feedbackloops with ebuddy  running on a browser (connected to facebook, etc), while being on facebook chat on facebook, and on ebuddy (logged onto facebook) with my 3GS. i've basically given up on all IMs now and i have no way to contact some people anymore. i really .. loathe .. what google did to Meebo.

 

wait what? does Message on 10.8 work for ICQ,Yahoo,gchat,fbchat,msn?? if so, how? would really love to know.

 

Messages does everything that iChat before it did, plus iMessage. Those work like they always have.

 

 

does this involve jabber somehow?

 

Indeed, but it's actually comparatively simple to set up.

 

Here's what is supported natively (plus iMessage), and then the rest can be set up through Jabber.

 

 

Facebook Microsoft Messenger

Edited by Tallest Skil - 7/21/12 at 11:08am

Guess that's the end of Sparrow.  This is what happens to small companies that develop good and innovative software; they get bought by larger companies, either to simply acquire the tech team or to kill the product.  This is one reason to avoid software, no matter how good, that's developed by small companies; tomorrow the product could be killed.