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Sparrow acquired by Google

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Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#41

Post by clarky07 »

DouweM wrote: post #24
kyro wrote: post #17

Very well designed app, so congrats to them. My only gripe and what's prevented me from using it as my main email app on my phone has been the lack of push notifications. I'm really, really hoping they implement that in an upcoming release.

They had already implemented it, but were using a way of keeping the app running in the background that's reserved for apps that play music or track your GPS location. Apple rejected the app because Sparrow was neither.

There is another way, but you can't keep it open forever. Any app can request to stay open for a short time to do anything it wants after close. I use this for an app that saves data to the cloud. No reason to make the user wait around for the save. You can't stay open forever though which I suspect is what they were doing.

Just wanting to point out there is a third option, though not indefinitely.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#42

Post by cheap »

kyleslattery wrote: post #35

The email Sparrow is sending out, looks like there won't be any future feature additions: Hello, We're excited to let you know that Sparrow has been acquired by Google! You can view our public announcement here, but I wanted to reach out directly to make sure you were aware of the news. We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as…

Key point, "we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps".

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#46

Post by rglover »

This is getting extremely frustrating. Sparrow is a fabulous email client both for iOS and Mac. I love and use both daily and this is fairly devastating. I was really looking forward to the products development, growth, and future releases. To read this announcement and hear that they won't be working on their apps but on Google projects is sad.

To bigger companies: chill out with the "acquihires." If anything, do what Facebook did with Instagram and keep them working on their product. It would be awesome to see the guts of Sparrow used in a Google branded Gmail client or similar (hopefully that happens, but I'm reluctant based on this statement).

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#47

Post by markgx »

kyleslattery wrote: post #35

The email Sparrow is sending out, looks like there won't be any future feature additions: Hello, We're excited to let you know that Sparrow has been acquired by Google! You can view our public announcement here, but I wanted to reach out directly to make sure you were aware of the news. We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as…

Looks like we can kiss getting push notifications on iPhone and the teased iPad version goodbye.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#48

Post by BlackNapoleon »

azza-bazoo wrote: post #10

Wow. Hopefully this will give Gmail the kick in the pants it needs ... the interface really hasn't changed that much since the early days. (Well, of course it's been prettified a bit, but besides a few things like Priority Inbox there have been scant few changes to the interaction. And I always liked that using Sparrow felt different to using the Gmail web interface.)

GMail has changed A LOT since its early days. What are you talking about?

Gmail is pretty much perfect and the Labs additions can basically give you a "Sparrow-like" window and viewing pane already.

APPLE needs these improvements, not google.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#49

Post by juliano_q »

jph wrote: post #12

Great to see Google investing in email UX. Sparrow is awesome and bringing the Sparrow UX ideals to Gmail will be a big boost forward. The Sparrow co-founder and CEO Dom Leca discusses Gmail in some detail here... Interviewer: Why can’t Google write a mail client for the iPhone that’s worth a crap? Sparrow CEO: Because they don’t really care about it. I mean, they’re not in the native app business, and all that matte…

I agree with him. You just have to use the Android Gmail app to notice that Google can do an awesome native e-mail app if they want. The phone client is so good that many times I prefer to use it than the web even when I am with my notebook.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#50

Post by Adirael »

mtgx wrote: post #39

I haven't used Sparrow, since I don't have an iOS device, but any particular reason why Google thought they needed to buy it? What could Sparrow bring to the Gmail mobile app that Google couldn't do themselves (or well enough)? Or maybe they just wanted it so the competition doesn't get it first, just like Facebook wanted Instagram?

They bought talent. The client is great but I don't see a need in Google for it.
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