Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sparrow acquired by Google

sprw.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 393 posts

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#281

Post by ralfd »

mindcrime wrote: post #249
rglover wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great point. But still no excuse to have their existing customers left behind. All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google. Where does that leave me? The biggest concern I have with this is the same thing that happened to Tweetie: the one company that should have scoope…

And now you've gotten lesson #1 on why F/OSS solutions have one huge advantage over their proprietary counterparts: If the original developers of a F/OSS app decide to drop it, you have choices. In the best case, another group of devs may simply fork the project and keep it going, or you ('you' in the general sense here) may choose to bring development in-house, or contract with a 3rd party to maintain and upgrade th…

With open source it is often the same. I am looking at you Mozilla Thunderbird.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#282

Post by toddmorey »

grisha wrote: post #277
lloeki wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google Even worse, I invested in Sparrow because I vastly prefer desktop apps like Sparrow to web apps like GMail. That's sad.

Will you still prefer desktop app if you get all its benefits with web app?

Because you really don't get all the benefits of a native app with a web app. It's getting better, the gap is closing, but it will be a while before web apps are an enjoyable an experience as a native app. I think Sparrow was actually a good proof point of that.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#283

Post by ralfd »

danudey wrote: post #221
wyclif wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but Gmail isn't a crappy app in my way of thinking. It was the best webmail in 2004, and it still is. You may not like it, but that doesn't extrapolate to crappiness. Although I'm sorry that Sparrow is being end-of-lifed, Gmail is a best of breed web app. well, obviously Google isn't going to be developing a native desktop app for Gmail. Sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. Desktop software is going out. Wh…

> Desktop software is going out. I'm inclined to disagree. I use no web apps that I don't have to. We use google apps at work, and I use Mac Mail, Calendar, and Contacts. The web app is a good option if I'm nowhere near my phone or laptop, but it's my absolute last choice. Ever since the days of Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, I've preferred local desktop clients. I've never enjoyed web apps, and I can't imagine I ever will.…

I concur. Just look how many people prefer a Twitter client instead of visiting the website.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#284

Post by dhimes »

untog wrote: post #224
rglover wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great point. But still no excuse to have their existing customers left behind. All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google. Where does that leave me? The biggest concern I have with this is the same thing that happened to Tweetie: the one company that should have scoope…

All of their customers (myself included) invested No you didn't. You bought. There was no investment, you should not expect a 'return'.

If they changed their workflow to incorporate the product, they invested.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#285

Post by bsg75 »

nickpresta wrote: post #265
bsg75 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be wonderful if it happened, but Google seems to be a place where good acquisitions go to die.

Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/23/googles-david-lawee-one-thi... So really, Google seems to be the place where 1/3 of acquisitions (in which not 100% are "good", per se) go to die.

These are not the success stories of Sparrow, but 3 that I recall that when purchased went dark in some form, to (possibly) re-emerge less than their former selves.

http://etherpad.com/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2008/01/jaiku-users-flee-to-... http://techcrunch.com/2008/02/27/it-took-16-months-but-googl...

Its not to say that this acquisition is not a great thing for the Sparrow team, or that Gmail may someday improve (UI wise), but it is an unfortunate trend for users when a great small / niche product is absorbed and obliterated.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#286

Post by infinite8s »

tptacek wrote: post #272
justauser wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to me where I said that? My posts have been to the effect of "hey little companies, if you're open to being waved to by big companies then let me know before I buy into your company's offerings."

Here is a clue for you. When a startup offers you its products for $9.99 or $2.99, they are open to be bought by big companies. There. Now you don't have to ask them to disclose things anymore.

How about - when a company sells you something for $, they are open to be bought by a bigger company (or possibly a smaller company with debt)

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#287

Post by endlessvoid94 »

w1ntermute wrote: post #184
rglover wrote: post #46

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 wh…

> 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. I think it's a matter of perspective. As someone who doesn't use and h…

there's no way you can possibly categorize Sparrow's UI as "revolutionary". It's just a simple mail client that works extremely well.

It's a little embarrassing that most software is so bad at simple tasks like this.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#288

Post by tommorris »

angrow wrote: post #227
tommorris wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite like being able to answer email when I'm in a railway tunnel, on a transatlantic flight or in a 3G dead zone. Desktop software is quite useful if you haven't bought into all the post-PC hoopla and still like typing things on a keyboard.

First, I'm pretty sure you can use a keyboard with gmail. As far as doing work offline, Application" rel="nofollow">http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/... Cache has you covered, assuming that by "answer," you mean "compose responses to," because if your software actually lets you respond in those situations then hot damn, I'm totally sold on it, hook us up with a link.

Been there, done that, got bored with playing that game. Why do I want something that only works half the time and shakily (seriously, look up some of the talks on the weirdness of AppCache) when I can have a nice looking, fast and reliable desktop app for whatever it was, $5 or something?

I've been using the AppCache'd Gmail app on iOS and... it's distinctly average compared to the Gmail app on Android. There's a lot web apps can do well, but for Mail I'd much rather have an actual desktop app.

And it's not just composing responses, it's tagging, archiving, deleting and so on with decent, working and reliable sync. The native app on Android rocks, and Sparrow is pretty damn awesome on the Mac.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#289

Post by bsg75 »

bsg75 wrote: post #285
nickpresta wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/23/googles-david-lawee-one-thi... So really, Google seems to be the place where 1/3 of acquisitions (in which not 100% are "good", per se) go to die.

These are not the success stories of Sparrow, but 3 that I recall that when purchased went dark in some form, to (possibly) re-emerge less than their former selves. http://etherpad.com/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2008/01/jaiku-users-flee-to-... http://techcrunch.com/2008/02/27/it-took-16-months-but-googl... Its not to say that this acquisition is not a great thing for the Sparrow team, or that Gmail may someday…

Another viewpoint: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/you-sh...

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#290

Post by ryanhuff »

lotyrin wrote: post #236
rglover wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great point. But still no excuse to have their existing customers left behind. All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google. Where does that leave me? The biggest concern I have with this is the same thing that happened to Tweetie: the one company that should have scoope…

The wants of the many outweigh the wants of the few.

Especially if the "many" are dead presidents.
Post reply on HN