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MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

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Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#31

Post by GrinningFool »

chimeracoder wrote: post #11

> But the larger goal with Inbox is not just to offer a suite of developer tools, but to create a new email standard. That means, Grinich says, the company has to provide the fundamental infrastructure as an open source package. I really am at a loss to think of something that email as a standard (and SMTP as a protocol) is lacking that requires a replacement. There are a lot of things that I would like from an email…

    At first glance, everything they talk about can be done 
    using IMAP and makes more sense to implement 
    client-side than server-side/embedded into the protocol
Take a stab at building an unicode-enabled email client that works using 90% of available client features across any one major email provider and any one imap OSS server. After a few months when the flow of edge-case bugs slows to a medium roar, take a stab at allowing customers to connect to a different OSS imap server. Then try adding support for exchange's imap.

The standards exist, but they are open to a lot of interpretation in key areas. As a result, there are a lot of interpretations. It's a painful thing.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#32

Post by grinich »

Angostura wrote: post #19

So, does it work with IMAP & POP?

Michael from Inbox here.

IMAP, yes. Gmail and Yahoo! Mail now, expanding to others ASAP. (We depend on the `CONDSTORE` extensions right now for performance, which isn't always supported.)

POP, no. My time machine didn't go back that far. ;)

But you can help add it? github.com/inboxapp/inbox

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#33

Post by grinich »

old-gregg wrote: post #8

Very neat, congrats on the launch! Quick Q: are there any reference/demo clients out there that use this sync engine? Even though I'm probably not you target audience, but I'd love to replace Outlook web client (and Gmail too) with something else.

Yeah definitely!

iOS: https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox-ios

JS/Angular: https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox.js

Full API docs: https://www.inboxapp.com/docs

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#34

Post by spang »

Angostura wrote: post #19

So, does it work with IMAP & POP?

Hi there, Christine from Inbox here.

Inbox integrates with your existing email accounts---we connect to the provider via IMAP, and provide a nice REST API on top of that. We don't support POP right now, but there's no reason we couldn't if there is demand.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#36

Post by grinich »

GrinningFool wrote: post #31
chimeracoder wrote: post #11

> But the larger goal with Inbox is not just to offer a suite of developer tools, but to create a new email standard. That means, Grinich says, the company has to provide the fundamental infrastructure as an open source package. I really am at a loss to think of something that email as a standard (and SMTP as a protocol) is lacking that requires a replacement. There are a lot of things that I would like from an email…

At first glance, everything they talk about can be done using IMAP and makes more sense to implement client-side than server-side/embedded into the protocol Take a stab at building an unicode-enabled email client that works using 90% of available client features across any one major email provider and any one imap OSS server. After a few months when the flow of edge-case bugs slows to a medium roar, take a stab at al…

This is exactly why we built the Inbox API.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#37

Post by kenster07 »

gwillen wrote: post #24

Your claim that your product will not be discontinued is worthless. If you're so sure of that, put your money where your mouth is, and offer an SLA with a contractual minimum duration you promise to keep the service up, and significant monetary penalties if you fail to meet it. Doesn't sound like a good idea? Then shut up.

I find the angry tone of this message to be misplaced and unnecessary.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#38

Post by jrlocke »

VonGuard wrote: post #26
grey-area wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me one thing that a user (power or just every day user) really needs that is not supported by a reasonably recent email client? Sure, here are some ideas I'd like to see: - Effortless encryption - Verified identity - Pull model rather than push model (like twitter, requires verified identity, would eliminate spam and work for many email addresses which you don't want to be public) - Attachments which are…

A lot of these are protocol changes, not necessarily client changes... And I don't see many protocol changes coming for email...

Yep, totally, email is probably as good as it will ever get. Pack up the bus guys, let's go home.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#39

Post by VLM »

chimeracoder wrote: post #11

> But the larger goal with Inbox is not just to offer a suite of developer tools, but to create a new email standard. That means, Grinich says, the company has to provide the fundamental infrastructure as an open source package. I really am at a loss to think of something that email as a standard (and SMTP as a protocol) is lacking that requires a replacement. There are a lot of things that I would like from an email…

"I really am at a loss to think of something that email as a standard (and SMTP as a protocol) is lacking that requires a replacement."

Scrap push and go pull, every destination I send to is just a personalized RSS feed I create and you can poll it or not. You want to connect with unknown people, post to a mailing list. Or people can push you a pull request which you're free to ignore.

If you want something a little less ambitious, how about mandatory cryptographic authentication as a 100% requirement, no downgrading and not optional. You wanna be in the new network you will have a real (not self signed) CA issued key and you will have a keyserver with all your users valid keys in them or we aren't accepting any mail from you or your supposed users. This isn't so much new tech with new code as issuing whips and chains to the sysadmins to enforce common sense.

Want something even simpler, I assume the only reason gmail doesn't do locale / charset filtering is a patent, but if not, it seems blindingly obvious that if I don't read Korean you could filter out anything containing more than 10% Korean glyphs or entire words. This is so obvious, the reason gmail doesn't provide it today must be a patent.

It would be funny if "inbox" means literal inbox as in a remake of that "scan and email" postal mail provider but they get around postal regulations by living in a civilized .gov or by not handling mail (they eat interoffice paper spam, which is admittedly a dying product, I haven't gotten a genuine paper memo in many years) Perhaps if you recall the anecdote from snow crash where the fedgov employee had her email reading habits tracked in detail, they could sell this to HR for sending HR-spam.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#40

Post by [deleted] »

grinich wrote: post #21
Agathos wrote: post #10

“Inbox is an email company. Google is an advertising company. This product is our focus, and will not be ‘discontinued’ unexpectedly.” Burn! Very amusing. But for all we know they will be acqui-hired, maybe even by Google, and then shifted to a different project.

I said this in the other thread and I know it sounds cliché, but we're not planning to "go away" or get acquired or something. We've always positioned this company as a long-term play, and made that very clear when hiring, raising money, etc. It's just not possible to go after something big if you plan to "flip" the company quickly.

[deleted]
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