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Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

shortwave.com

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Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#21

Post by jwngr »

awill wrote: post #10

I tried it out, but instantly realized the 'free' version is go restrictive it's useless. I get many startups want to make sure the free version isn't too good, but here the free version is unusable. Also, $9/mo for a frontend for gmail is just way too much. $108/y ??? If you're going to pay that much, surely you'd just get off gmail entirely. Why pay that much but still give up all your privacy...

Outside of search and import history, our free version is 100% feature compatible with the paid version. None of the core functionality (including the new AI stuff) requires a paid plan. On a paid plan, you can import and search your full history. On the free plan, you can import and search your last 90 days. See our pricing page for more details (https://www.shortwave.com/pricing/).

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#22

Post by barbazoo »

awill wrote: post #10

I tried it out, but instantly realized the 'free' version is go restrictive it's useless. I get many startups want to make sure the free version isn't too good, but here the free version is unusable. Also, $9/mo for a frontend for gmail is just way too much. $108/y ??? If you're going to pay that much, surely you'd just get off gmail entirely. Why pay that much but still give up all your privacy...

I bet there are lots of people that "live" inside their email client all day long. Saving them time and effort will pay off quickly, $108/year is nothing even if it just saves you 30 minutes every day.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#23

Post by richardw »

awill wrote: post #10

I tried it out, but instantly realized the 'free' version is go restrictive it's useless. I get many startups want to make sure the free version isn't too good, but here the free version is unusable. Also, $9/mo for a frontend for gmail is just way too much. $108/y ??? If you're going to pay that much, surely you'd just get off gmail entirely. Why pay that much but still give up all your privacy...

I think the measure of this would be "would this make me more than $9 a month more efficient" and "is there any alternative that is a better cost/benefit", i.e. a free tool that is mostly as good. For you it might be useless, for someone who lives on gmail and charges per hour, it's probably an instant win.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#24

Post by jwngr »

smusamashah wrote: post #16
jwngr wrote: post #2

Hi HN - Shortwave co-founder here. We’ve built a full-featured email client over the last couple of years, just in time for the rise of LLMs. We’ve added quite a few features (and are working on many more) that use LLMs to save you time. I’m most excited about Smart Summaries — they’ll read and then summarize (even from a different language) long newsletters & those huge threads you just don’t want to wade through. W…

Why are you focusing on being AI driven now? Shortwave has been great already. This seems more like an attempt to capture some crowd via current AI hype. I don't know but it may also work in reverse giving a sense of less privacy or something.

I go into this a bit more in our blog post from today [1], but we believe LLMs are going to transform how we interact with email. Yes, you still need a solid inbox with labels and contacts and push notifications and everything else that email clients like Shortwave offer. And we will continue to iterate on and nail that experience. But these new tools allow us to push the boundaries of what can be done with email, and we intend to do just that.

[1] https://www.shortwave.com/blog/ai-email-summaries/

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#25

Post by baxtr »

felixg3 wrote: post #4
jwngr wrote: post #2

Hi HN - Shortwave co-founder here. We’ve built a full-featured email client over the last couple of years, just in time for the rise of LLMs. We’ve added quite a few features (and are working on many more) that use LLMs to save you time. I’m most excited about Smart Summaries — they’ll read and then summarize (even from a different language) long newsletters & those huge threads you just don’t want to wade through. W…

Why are you calling it an email client? It is obviously not. It is a proprietary front-end for Gmail, which is not even remotely the same.

80% of all emails are gmail? So yeah technically you’re right but actually they are.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#26

Post by rockwotj »

steponlego wrote: post #15
jwngr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use OpenAI's GPT-3 API to generate summaries. We have explicitly opted out of OpenAI's default behavior of using their APIs to train their models: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/5722486-how-your-data-is...

So, yes?

It's an opt-in feature, so it's only for the emails you request to be summarized.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#28

Post by smusamashah »

jwngr wrote: post #20
smusamashah wrote: post #11

I dont know why Shortwave is pivoting to current AI craze. I have been using it for a while and it's amazing. Only qualm I have with it, and it's the reason I stopped using it for sometime, that when you mark an email 'done' it does not translate to that email marked as 'read' in Gmail. Before I realized this I was under the impression that my emails are being marked as read too. Otherwise, shortwave strength is that…

Despite adding some AI features, we are definitely still focused on the core triage and workflow of getting through your inbox. We've launched a bunch of other stuff already this year ( https://www.shortwave.com/changelog/ ) and have more non-AI features coming. As for marking stuff as read: this is a known issue that we are planning to address. For now, it behaves like archive in Gmail, which does not mark as read.…

The homepage of site now advertising AI features on the top. Which feels like that summarization is just the first thing and there are more AI driven features yet to come. It feels like its going to shift focus on AI as a top priority.

More AI driven features are good probably, but the whole product being AI driven is questionable.

I don't appreciate the Gmail archive very much. I have a pile of emails I want to get rid of (delete) which archiving does not help with. It actually increases the size of the pile when you archive unread emails. I would just like an option to mark an email as read when I mark it done in shortwave.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#29

Post by einpoklum »

1. Don't use GMail - the US government and a bunch of commercial corporations should not be able to read your email and/or mine it for useful information to manipulate you with.

2. With this kind of frontend, you're just adding more entities which scrutinize your email and your behavior patterns. Oh, and apparently this costs a bunch of money to really use.

3. The appropriate frontend for email services (even GMail) is a FOSS mail client.

Here's a list of many of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_email_clients

I use Thunderbird personally, which is ok-ish and somewhat extensible.

Re: Shortwave: A GPT-3-powered front end for Gmail

#30

Post by latexr »

jwngr wrote: post #20
smusamashah wrote: post #11

I dont know why Shortwave is pivoting to current AI craze. I have been using it for a while and it's amazing. Only qualm I have with it, and it's the reason I stopped using it for sometime, that when you mark an email 'done' it does not translate to that email marked as 'read' in Gmail. Before I realized this I was under the impression that my emails are being marked as read too. Otherwise, shortwave strength is that…

Despite adding some AI features, we are definitely still focused on the core triage and workflow of getting through your inbox. We've launched a bunch of other stuff already this year ( https://www.shortwave.com/changelog/ ) and have more non-AI features coming. As for marking stuff as read: this is a known issue that we are planning to address. For now, it behaves like archive in Gmail, which does not mark as read.…

> Despite adding some AI features

I opened the website and the first thing I see is “Intelligent email, powered by AI”, with “by AI” highlighted with a gradient. I scroll down and the first feature is “Summarize with AI”. I don’t fault the other commenter for thinking you’ve pivoted to the AI craze, that is the vibe you’re sending very loudly.

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