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The Mail Pilot Public Beta

mailpilot.co

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Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#21

Post by natrius »

sirclueless wrote: post #9

I appreciate that someone is making an email app for power users. It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future). On the other hand, I have grown so accustomed to Gmail's conversation view that there is no way I can give it up, even for a really good servic…

"It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future)."

I solved this problem by no longer using my email as a task management tool. Emails that contain a new task get forwarded to Asana, where tasks are easier to deal with. This approach is closer to the Unix philosophy of narrowly scoped tools that can be effectively combined, and it's a philosophy that hasn't failed me yet.

"Gmail's conversation view is ... a tough natural language processing task"

Is it? How is it more than a different way of presenting threads?

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#22

Post by knodi »

motoford wrote: post #10

I tried to sign up but it kept telling me my password was not good enough, although I was sure to include the required characters.

Yes, I really hate this. I was going to pay the $60 but just because of their current password rule I decided against it.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#23

Post by motoford »

knodi wrote: post #22
motoford wrote: post #10

I tried to sign up but it kept telling me my password was not good enough, although I was sure to include the required characters.

Yes, I really hate this. I was going to pay the $60 but just because of their current password rule I decided against it.

I get your sarcasm. I missed the gotta pay to try, I thought I was signing up for a trial or a beta.

My complaint isn't that they have a password rule, it's that my password met the requirements but they obviously are looking for something other than what they are rejecting mine on. I suspect it was length, but by then I was tired of trying to guess.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#24

Post by gm »

ljoshua wrote: post #11
modarts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That underlies a major issue i'm seeing more of in the tech startup scene: Coming up with solutions to problems a large majority of users don't face. Blog after blog proclaiming that "Email is broken", "It's time to rethink email" etc, etc. No. Your users don't think that at all. They are happily chugging along, oblivious to the crises manufactured by neckbeards. Your value proposition needs to be reframed in terms o…

These are solutions to problems faced by middle- and upper-management, so there are real customers out there that have this real problem. The difficulty, however, is getting this cool, shiny solution into their existing corporate email workflow.

Like I said in my other message: They already have it, and it's called MS Outlook.

There's nothing mentioned in the advantages list that one cannot do readily with Outlook (under a different name for the feature in some cases).

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#25

Post by ew »

I'd love to know the reasoning behind the archaic password requirements. As a rule there's absolutely no way I'm changing my extremely secure password just for their app.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#26

Post by knodi »

motoford wrote: post #23
knodi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I really hate this. I was going to pay the $60 but just because of their current password rule I decided against it.

I get your sarcasm. I missed the gotta pay to try, I thought I was signing up for a trial or a beta. My complaint isn't that they have a password rule, it's that my password met the requirements but they obviously are looking for something other than what they are rejecting mine on. I suspect it was length, but by then I was tired of trying to guess.

No, I'm serious. The password rule turned me away.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#27

Post by pknight »

I signed up oblivious to the fact that they were going to present a forced checkout step midway registration. What a sucky experience. I'm not going to spend $60 on a product I haven't even seen to a company who's policies I don't even know (information is very skimpy).

On second thought I realized that letting a startup deal with my email is the exact opposite of what I want. It already sucks that we have to trust email providers with our communications, let alone let in another 3rd party that's a startup. Sticking with Thunderbird. I would like a better email client though.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#28

Post by Derbasti »

natrius wrote: post #21
sirclueless wrote: post #9

I appreciate that someone is making an email app for power users. It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future). On the other hand, I have grown so accustomed to Gmail's conversation view that there is no way I can give it up, even for a really good servic…

"It does a lot of the things I am currently forced to hack onto Gmail's priority inbox (I leave items I need to revisit in my inbox, archive "done" tasks, and star items I want to revisit in the distant future)." I solved this problem by no longer using my email as a task management tool. Emails that contain a new task get forwarded to Asana, where tasks are easier to deal with. This approach is closer to the Unix ph…

Technically, it is like threads, but it includes messages from other directories that belong to the thread, thus showing you the whole coversation including your answers and archived messages.

Graphically, it shows all the messages in a continuous stream as opposed to only one message at a time. Since you now see all responses at once, there is no need for quoting any more, so quotes are collapsed.

I don't use Gmail any more, but conversation view is all but essential for me, too.

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#29

Post by jvermasheina »

amirmc wrote: post #19
46Bit wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. People seem to be designing entirely consumer focused experiences around a problem that's main pained group and largest collection of cash is the upper echelons of corporations.

I think when you're at that level you're actually competing with humans . If I'm upper management and have too much incoming mail, I can hire a human to help me sift/prioritise/ignore as well as all the other things a human can help me with.

Very very very well put! That actually holds true to many B2B sales scenarios - especially when targeting C levels.

// OT //

Your point connected especially well with me since it rang so many bells with what I experienced when I was pitching my last startup (now defunct) in the live music industry.

Music and live music industry is a bit perverted in that it's such a "cool" scene to be associated with that it has a constant flux of fresh and very much free workforce available. As in humans.

This eventually created a bit of a conundrum in terms of value creation and pitching digital solutions to our prospecting customers - the live music promoters.

How exactly can you create value out of eg. time savings or better workflow management if the essential resource (workforce) is basically free and abundant. :)

Needless to say I'm not a huge fan of music startups in general nowadays for this particular reason since this problem basically permeates the whole industry through and through.

I have a hard time seeing a B2B / B2B2C service provider extracting a meaningful business out of music industry SMB's.

But I digress. :)

Re: The Mail Pilot Public Beta

#30

Post by JoelMarsh »

jfarmer wrote: post #18

I paid $60 to try it out. Not worth it right now. It might, might be worth it when the desktop app is out. I wish I didn't fork over the money.

Upvoted. Sorry to hear about your buyer's remorse, but thanks for paying it and posting your thoughts. Anything more specific? Likes and dislikes?
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