K-9 Mail is looking for funding • Hacker News Board

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#21

Post by jqpabc123 » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

How to create one super successful email client.

- Support IMAP IDLE

- Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

- Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient.

Why this would be super successful.

1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use.

2) Consistency, simplicity and ease of support.

3) Contrary to popular opinion, 99 percent of business communication is not super secret stuff. It doesn't warrant the complexity of full time end to end encryption. But it is nice to bave it readily available for the 1 percent where it is really needed.

And yes, I have used K9 personally and I will support it but it doesn't begin to meet my business needs.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#22

Post by Aachen » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 12:57 PM UTC

richardwhiuk wrote: post #18

BubuIIC wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at the beta versions yet? The UI was overhauled over basically the last 1.5 years and the points mentioned in the blog post are the bits missing to release that as a stable version (IMAP IDLE mostly): https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases I've been running the betas since more than a year without any problems whatsoever. (If you don't need push obviously)

I struggle to understand why there hasn't been a release for 1.5 years, especially with a ~full time dev. I definitely struggle to udnerstand why IMAP IDLE is critical for a release. Edit: Oh, probably a minSDK force - i.e. the cost of standing still in mobile development.

What's a minsdk force? I know what minsdk is but the sentence doesn't compute for me

Edit: oh, randomly spotted this:

> A major factor was the API level requirement by Google Play. It required us to make changes to internals of the app in order to be able to publish updates via the Play Store.

I don't get the problem. Why not do a release? If google doesn't want the hard work and updates yet, fine, you can still tag a new release and people can use f-droid, download the apk, whatever right? (I'm using it via f-droid, thought most people would be doing that since it's an open source client with graphics from the 2009, the kind of thing you only use as foss fan).

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#23

Post by pabs3 » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #21

How to create one super successful email client. - Support IMAP IDLE - Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. - Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient. Why this would be super successful. 1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use. 2) Consistency, si…

I think support for IMAP NOTIFY scales better, since it is per-connection instead of per-folder.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#24

Post by richardwhiuk » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #22

richardwhiuk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to understand why there hasn't been a release for 1.5 years, especially with a ~full time dev. I definitely struggle to udnerstand why IMAP IDLE is critical for a release. Edit: Oh, probably a minSDK force - i.e. the cost of standing still in mobile development.

What's a minsdk force? I know what minsdk is but the sentence doesn't compute for me Edit: oh, randomly spotted this: > A major factor was the API level requirement by Google Play. It required us to make changes to internals of the app in order to be able to publish updates via the Play Store. I don't get the problem. Why not do a release? If google doesn't want the hard work and updates yet, fine, you can still tag…

In order to release a new version to the appstores, both Google and Apple require a certain minimum version for the app to be compiled against.

Historically, Apple gives you about a year before you have to compile against the latest SDK, and Google gave you a lot longer.

However, recently, both have become more aggressive about requiring new versions to be compiled against the latest SDKs.

Thus you can't do a "proper" release without moving up to the latest SDK.

Compiling against the latest SDK often breaks things, especially for an app which does a lot of things in the background.

This is part of the "cost of staying still" in mobile app development, which is both hard to predict, and can be very expensive.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#25

Post by padraic7a » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

wizeman wrote: post #12

padraic7a wrote: post #8

K9 used to feel like a great app, but I think it has been creaking around the edges for a while. I've thrown in a few quid. There isn't anything to rival it so I hope it gets some more developer time.

I've been using FairEmail (from F-Droid) and it works extremely well. Looks better and seems more reliable to me.

FairEmail puts some of it's features in a pro version only. Which is fine, I support developers getting paid to work, but in this case I would rather help crowd fund K9 which can offer these features to anyone - whether they can pay or not.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#26

Post by cketti » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #21

How to create one super successful email client. - Support IMAP IDLE - Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. - Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient. Why this would be super successful. 1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use. 2) Consistency, si…

Probably not the right app for your use cases, but check out Delta Chat for an example of how unobtrusive email encryption can be:

https://delta.chat/

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#27

Post by Black101 » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

spapas82 wrote: post #2

K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or…

I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#28

Post by da_big_ghey » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #3

I'm surprised there's no work being done on the UI on the roadmap, K-9 looks like an app from the "Ice Cream Sandwich" days of Android. With that being said, K-9 is the best Android app I've seen for mail that isn't made by Google. edit: it seems the work has already been done, thanks for the correction.

I don't know, the UI is good. I like the "Ice Cream Sandwich" look, honestly. I wonder if the time of an open-source project is best served by re-doing the UI just to keep up with trends.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#29

Post by Aachen » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

richardwhiuk wrote: post #24

Aachen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a minsdk force? I know what minsdk is but the sentence doesn't compute for me Edit: oh, randomly spotted this: > A major factor was the API level requirement by Google Play. It required us to make changes to internals of the app in order to be able to publish updates via the Play Store. I don't get the problem. Why not do a release? If google doesn't want the hard work and updates yet, fine, you can still tag…

In order to release a new version to the appstores, both Google and Apple require a certain minimum version for the app to be compiled against. Historically, Apple gives you about a year before you have to compile against the latest SDK, and Google gave you a lot longer. However, recently, both have become more aggressive about requiring new versions to be compiled against the latest SDKs. Thus you can't do a "proper…

Does this also mean older devices are forced into obsolescence? Since this is minsdk and not maxsdk it sounds like it, but there's still many apps that run on my 2018 device with Android 7 (and even 2012 device with 4.4) so that can't really be.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#30

Post by Aachen » Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

Black101 wrote: post #27

spapas82 wrote: post #2

K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or…

I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/