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Alternative Mail Apps
- Thread starter AJsAWiz
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I've come to the realization that on apple, Apple Mail app is the best solution. It's no use using third-party emails because there will always be a problem or issue. The UI may suck and gmail push may not work properly on apple Mail, but at the end of the day, it just works on both iOS & macOS.
Same here, no need for bells and whistles when it comes down to processing my emails.
The problem with Apple mail is that attachments are not easily visible and attaching multiple files takes a lot of clicks. I am waiting for iOS11 to see if these UI issues have been fixed.
[QUOTE="- e-mail don't show immediately when you open up the app (although the badge icon shows e.g. 2 new e-mails and background app refresh is on for Spark). [This is maybe a security thing of somesort although I don't get why because you can seen the preview why not load the full e-mail in the app already, I've seen the same behaviour with Email by Edison][/QUOTE]
This is the reason why I keep coming back to Outlook - it seems to load emails faster without requiring any pulling down to refresh the Inbox (I keep BAR off). Even Apple Mail app takes much longer to load new emails. But Outlook is not perfect either... it doesn't have another important feature - syncing Drafts between the web Gmail and the Outlook app. There are thousands of requests for this under Suggest a Feature for more than a year and it still shows working on it...
As for the Email app which looks nice but it seems to take up more memory because whenever I have used it for a few days and it sits in the background, other apps tend to refresh more often - probably they are getting purged because of insufficient RAM and there isn't any simple accurate way on iOS to figure out which apps take up how much memory.
This is the reason why I keep coming back to Outlook - it seems to load emails faster without requiring any pulling down to refresh the Inbox (I keep BAR off). Even Apple Mail app takes much longer to load new emails. But Outlook is not perfect either... it doesn't have another important feature - syncing Drafts between the web Gmail and the Outlook app. There are thousands of requests for this under Suggest a Feature for more than a year and it still shows working on it...
As for the Email app which looks nice but it seems to take up more memory because whenever I have used it for a few days and it sits in the background, other apps tend to refresh more often - probably they are getting purged because of insufficient RAM and there isn't any simple accurate way on iOS to figure out which apps take up how much memory.
In my opinion, Spark is the best email app for iOS. I can't think of another app that has the same level of functionality whilst retaining a stripped back minimalist UI.
I'm sure you don't want them to add features just for the sake of it as it will become a bloated mess like most other email apps!
Spark is the best from the ones I have tested as well. As long as you don't mind advertising. Their UI is superb and unobtrusive.
Every app I've looked at as 1-2 things missing. But my ideal app would have
- Attach files from OneDrive for Business (iOS 11 appears to bridge this gap by creating a link via the Files app)
- Calendar support
- Customizable swipes
- Share Sheet support—I used Things 3, and I want the ability to send an email to a task or to create a new task
- Exchange directory support
- iPad support
Like many here, I've tried them all. So many of them have issues and negatives that prevent me some making them "daily drivers" so to speak. Some have UI issues, some reliability issues and nearly all of them have privacy issues. Spark was the closest, but man they take light years to put out updates. Then they hype the hell out of the updates via social media only for it to release as a very MEH update. Or they say its "coming soon" for like 3-4 months, highly annoying. They also aren't very transparent on the privacy front either when they get grilled on social or reddit. Airmail used to be great, but man the bugs and sync issues are bad lately and updates are slow. Email by Easilydo (Edison) or whatever was awesome, but they harvest your data like all of these other guys and turn you into the product. Though they do at least provide an "opt out" in the privacy section, thats nice if it actually does in fact opt you out.
Essentially, you have to pick your poison. Free solutions turn you into the product, and the cost solutions (airmail, newton, canary, etc) are either too costly or just plain suck at being an actual reliable email system.
So, I just use Apple Mail. I got tired of stressing over a good client. Apple Mail may not have instant push or some other bells and whistles, but its reliable and gets the job done effectively.
Essentially, you have to pick your poison. Free solutions turn you into the product, and the cost solutions (airmail, newton, canary, etc) are either too costly or just plain suck at being an actual reliable email system.
So, I just use Apple Mail. I got tired of stressing over a good client. Apple Mail may not have instant push or some other bells and whistles, but its reliable and gets the job done effectively.
That's pretty much the conclusion I came to after spending some time testing various mail apps and reading their Privacy Policies.
In terms of Apple Mail, I did some changes to it to make it more usable from the UI perspective. Most notably I decreased font size and removed message preview. This eliminated a lot of clutter and made the client more transparent and less obtrusive.
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Edison Email would be great, but only if they wont collect your dataThey admit they even read beginning of your email text to sort them smart
Almost every 3rd party email apps collecting data or\and snooping your mails, they're not the only one that doing so. The thing is most of them won't admit it of doing so...
I use Newton and yes I know there are questions about privacy too, I guess I am just not that bothered and do not consider email to be a secure or private medium anyway. I just accept their explanation re encryption etc and as with many companies go with it. Google and Amazon scare me more TBH!
Apple mail is probably the most secure option but there are compromises e.g. as all processing happens on the device I find the battery use % to be 3-4x that of Newton and that is without proper push on most accounts.
I am looking at an alternative in a month or so as I got Newton half price during black Friday and do not think I will pay £50 to renew. I have previously paid for both Spark and Airmail so could try them again, from memory though they were not as stable or battery efficient as Newton?
Apple mail is probably the most secure option but there are compromises e.g. as all processing happens on the device I find the battery use % to be 3-4x that of Newton and that is without proper push on most accounts.
I am looking at an alternative in a month or so as I got Newton half price during black Friday and do not think I will pay £50 to renew. I have previously paid for both Spark and Airmail so could try them again, from memory though they were not as stable or battery efficient as Newton?
That's the reason why I stayed with apple mail and webmail for alternative. I reconfigured apple mail for better UI and it works quite nice. I already pay for private email service and it would be oxymoron for me to sell my emails because of some "3rd: party developer crappy TOS.
Could you share details on how you reconfigured Mail. The main problem I deal with is the font size inconsistency seen when sending mail to anyone using Exchange. I even downloaded Microsoft fonts and set the default font to Calibri in Mail.
I am wondering if there is anything more I can do to improve reliability and compatibility.
I am trying to get off of Outlook and possibly MS Office all together. I am test driving this idea with a MacBook and noticed a much improved battery life and performance. It seems like office apps are very resource heavy.
Apple mail really sucks it search functionality is terrible. I just have everything running through gmail, I use Apple mail for my work emails ( I don’t get that many) and leave gmail for everything else, marketing, spam and forums etc
Spark is good but the native apps just seem easier and gmail has great search and labelling
Spark is good but the native apps just seem easier and gmail has great search and labelling
After trying several alternatives and using Spark exclusively for 6 months, I’ve gone back to Apple Mail. There are some minor annoyances, but the overall feel is cleaner, so I think I’ll be sticking with it.
In the Apple app, the inability to close the sidebar in landscape mode is still irritating. I also get a glitch where text in an email runs over an embedded photo - same email displays fine in AltaMail. These two issues are what keeps me using AltaMail in parallel with the Apple app (iPad Air 2).
I’ve tried them all but will stick with AirMail which I find near perfect.
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https://www.pigeonmailapp.com/?ref=getworm