Show HN: I made an email app inspired by Arc browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made an email app inspired by Arc browser

#51

Post by hirako2000 » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

johndamaia wrote: post #45

hirako2000 wrote: post #9

> This demo is optimized for desktop screens (1000px+) Could reword this: demo only available on... Better would be to make it mobile responsive before it trends on hackernews.

Oh great feedback, fixed! I'm learning this the hard way. I really value the attention to detail and a mobile version of this feels like almost like a different product. But yea, I need to start working on a mobile version asap! Here's a video with the demo: https://x.com/define_app/status/2030023425150910907?s=20

I think a mobile version should be your sole focus.

Look at it that way, emails are in fact better managed with traditional, deterministic tools. Can move things around, labels, filter, batch delete fast.

On mobile the power tools are difficult to navigate. We are typically on the go, we want quick in and out. That's the main use case to splash an LLM over emails. In fact. It could be just the prompt, to find, read and for quick replies.

Call me a sceptic, I don't see AI replacing something as sensitive as the e-mail interface we know and trust, at least not soon.

Re: Show HN: I made an email app inspired by Arc browser

#52

Post by johndamaia » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #51

johndamaia wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh great feedback, fixed! I'm learning this the hard way. I really value the attention to detail and a mobile version of this feels like almost like a different product. But yea, I need to start working on a mobile version asap! Here's a video with the demo: https://x.com/define_app/status/2030023425150910907?s=20

I think a mobile version should be your sole focus. Look at it that way, emails are in fact better managed with traditional, deterministic tools. Can move things around, labels, filter, batch delete fast. On mobile the power tools are difficult to navigate. We are typically on the go, we want quick in and out. That's the main use case to splash an LLM over emails. In fact. It could be just the prompt, to find, read a…

> It could be just the prompt, to find, read and for quick replies.

This is super interesting.

Re: Show HN: I made an email app inspired by Arc browser

#53

Post by ozerk » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC

This is one of the cleanest email UIs I’ve seen in a while. Feels calm, which is rare for email.

Re: Show HN: I made an email app inspired by Arc browser

#54

Post by array_key_first » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 4:23 AM UTC

bryanhogan wrote: post #17

carl_dr wrote: post #8

“ This demo is optimized for desktop screens (1000px+).” Opportunity missed with me, not everyone browses HN on their desktop. At least have some screenshots of your app so I am motivated to check later.

I think especially for websites / web apps you'd want to start with a "mobile first" design, as is common in web design. It's almost always easier to go from lower widths to large widths than the other way around for good responsive designs. This, and 1000px being an arbitrary number, doesn't give me confidence.

I disagree with mobile first design in general. Some apps are meant to be desktop apps, and you can't make them into mobile apps without either severely dumbing them down or just creating a different apps.

Like outlook, which is also an email client. I'm sure there's an outlook smartphone app, haven't used it, but it's certainly a completely different UI and application.

I can usually spot mobile first design from a mile away. Because the app looks stupid on desktop and sort of feels like a toy. Huge buttons, enormous white space, menus for no reason.