

Sparrow for iPhone - _frog
http://sparrowmailapp.com/iphone.php

======
ivanstojic
I have several (breaking) issues with the paid desktop version of the
Sparrow.app. I've posted the most bothersome one on their support forums about
two weeks ago: no reply at all. Nothing.

As a company that does epic UI, they should figure out that customer support
is a form of user interface as well.

I'm not ready to give them any more money at this point.

~~~
lylejohnson
I stopped using Sparrow due to a bug in their implementation of two-factor
authentication for Gmail (it would always "forget" my app-specific password on
startup). I got at least one (unhelpful) response to my support request(s) but
the trail eventually went dead, with no resolution to the problem.

~~~
squadron
I can't for the life of me sign into my gmail account using the Sparrow iPhone
app. Is this an issue other people have been having?

~~~
chriswarren
Looks like that's a bug that they're fixing in the next release.
<https://twitter.com/sparrow/status/180334664890855424>

------
dr_
When your email client wants to be able to post as you on your Facebook wall,
that's never a good thing.

~~~
samnm
As far as I know it only uses Facebook to pull display pictures for received
emails, which is actually a pretty cool feature.

~~~
stock_toaster
I wonder why they don't use gravatar.

They have the email handy already.

------
bgentry
I've been waiting for a decent iOS Gmail client for so long. This is an
excellent first release, far better than Google's own half-hearted attempt.

Let's hope they get some traction petitioning for an acceptable method to send
push notifications: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3706993>

~~~
Xuzz
I think the issue here is that it isn't really "push" they want to do. From
what I can tell, they want to do is simply "run all the time so we can keep a
connection open to receive new messages immediately". Which, to be fair, is
pretty similar to what Apple does for their push notifications.

However, allowing this would be a bad move. It'd mean that rather than once
centralized connection that knows about the device's network state and can (at
least try to) preserver battery life, you'd then have as many as one per each
app, always open. (Once Sparrow does this, then why could any other app not?)

The real issue here is that, from their responses, it seems that Google
doesn't have some sort of authentication method like that could be used to get
access to just enough information to pass the push data to Apple — or, at
least, not one (like OAuth) that doesn't need them to remotely store a
username and password. If there was a way for them to get some sort of useless
"token" to get the notifications themselves and pass them to Apple, I don't
think the security issues would be anywhere near as severe (especially if it
was an opt-in service). But I don't know if Google does that, and their
responses don't seem encouraging that something like this would be possible.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Re push, I use an IMAP client called K-9 Mail on Android which has support for
IMAP IDLE, which is basically the IMAP version of push. It keeps a constant
connection open to my IMAP server and is immediately informed of any new mail.
I have not noticed any reduction in battery performance since moving from 15
minute polls. I still get 1.5 to 2 days use out of it (HTC Desire Z).

There's nothing inherently wrong with this on mobile devices. If Apple can't
do it for iOS, that is a flaw in their design, or their thinking.

~~~
RandallBrown
sure, K-9 Mail works fine and implements everything correctly. But what
happens when you have 4 or 5 apps that start polling constantly for updates
because they don't want to deal with push notifications? I think Apple opening
up this functionality would be a mistake that's open for abuse by other
developers.

~~~
mike-cardwell
You think it would be harmful if iOS allowed apps to run in the background and
make connections whenever they want?

That's exactly the scenario we have with Android, and it's not a problem
there...

------
mike-cardwell
Has anyone tested this client with The Email Privacy Tester yet?
<https://grepular.com/email_privacy_tester/> \- I'd do it myself, but I don't
have an iOS device.

~~~
dsplittgerber
I was seriously shocked to see that the iPhone's native client leaked that
bad. 2 questions: 1) Is it possible for an app to leak less? 2) Is the
'leakage' already commonly exploited by firms for specific means? (proving you
saw something etc.)

If anyone could help, that'd be awesome!

~~~
mike-cardwell
My understanding (I don't have an iOS device) is that the standard iOS email
client has remote images enabled by default, and if you turn that off, then it
doesn't leak at all. I think all email clients should have the option to
automatically load remote images, but that it should be disabled by default.
The problem is, users don't understand that by clicking the "load remote
images" button, it will be possible to track them, so they often don't
understand its purpose.

It is possible for an email app to not leak at all. All it has to do is not
load remote content unless the user specifically requests it.

Yes, these tricks are commonly exploited. Most of the time, people just use a
simple img tag pointing to a 1 pixel image, although recently there was some
news about Facebook using the bgsound tag.

I don't know if law enforcement ever use these sort of techniques to try and
track down suspects, but it wouldn't surprise me.

~~~
brown9-2
You are correct about iOS. On my iPhone 4 with iOS 5.1, with remote images
enabled (by default) it leaks 17 out of 32 categories. With remote images
disabled, it leaks 0 out of 32 categories.

In contrast, Outlook for Mac 2011 leaks 2 out of 32 categories (audio and
video) with remote images disabled. Mail.app 4.5 leaks 14 out of 32 categories
with remote images disabled.

~~~
mike-cardwell
The iPhone used to leak audio and video too, when images were disabled. I bug
reported that ages ago and they fixed it after a few months.

Do you intend to file bug reports for Outlook and Mail.app?

EDIT: I just asked somebody who has Mail.app version 5.2 to test with remote
images disabled, and it didn't trigger any of the tests.

------
pablasso
I can't get into my head why Google, with so many resources, can't a least do
something like Sparrow for iOS.

~~~
_frog
To take the cynical standpoint, it's hardly in their best interests to make a
first-class app for a competing platform.

~~~
tomkr
Why not? If Google gives me a crappy mail app on my iPhone I am definitely not
switching to Android. On the other hand, if it is high quality I may actually
be tempted to switch.

~~~
natesm
Indeed, Microsoft continually puts out great iPhone apps (with a visual style
that I wish was the standard on iOS).

------
dwynings
I've been a beta tester of their iPhone app for over a month now, and while
the UI is stellar, I still haven't found it to be a replacement for Apple's
Mail app because of Sparrow's lack of push.

~~~
wattjustin
I've been a beta tester for the last month or so as well and I can definitely
say this has replaced Mail.app for me. I feel relieved not seeing the red
notification bubble growing. It's been freeing and I've got a much better way
of managing my emails now. I hope Apple comes around on notifications though
so this app will be even more popular(already broken the top 25 paid apps here
in Canada.)

~~~
lovskogen
You easily remove that red dot badge, for all the apps you want – in
Notification Center.

~~~
wattjustin
Absolutely, but my point is that not having the option for the notifications
is fine by me now that I've realized I can live without. I should have made
that clearer though.

------
veidr
Wow, this looks like a really good IMAP client for the phone. A major
limitation of the built-in iOS Mail app is that it has no facility to combine
sent/received mail into one conversation view (unlike Mail on the Mac).

Sparrow also features a nice polished UI, and is responsive.

3-minutes-of-use verdict: GOOD

------
krmmalik
I've tried a number of email clients on the iPhone. In the end, i nearly
always end up reverting back to the default app. There's something about the
simplicity of it that always brings me back. That said, the other apps were
always slower fetching mail from gmail which never helps. The only app that i
have found to be very good is the gmail for iPhone app, but i only use it
occasionally when the default app cant find an email address from my gmail
address book. I should really use the gmail app more. Its mostly good enough.

Either way, whichever app i settle with in the end, its going to be the one
that is the quickest in operation.

------
martingordon
This is nice, and the lack of push notifications can be seen as a feature –
less distractions! One possible solution to that issue is to build a push
notification server into the desktop version so they wouldn't have to store
your credentials.

One thing that keeps me from using Sparrow for OS X (or any other desktop
client) is that they download every email, and I don't want to spare the 7 GB
of hard drive space for something I don't need every day. Mail for iOS lets me
choose to store only the last X messages on the device, but I haven't seen
that option on any desktop client.

~~~
klausa
You could emulate that behavior by setting up filters in Mail.app on OS X,
that would delete messages older than X days, for what it's worth.

~~~
martingordon
Wouldn't that also delete the from my IMAP server (in my case, Gmail)? I'd
also be worried about deleting the messages from my [All Mail] folder, which
is what I have a real issue with (my inbox is rarely very large).

------
yangez
This is worth the $3 just for the working search functionality and the ability
to view your sent messages. The awesome UI is just a bonus.

------
zschallz
I'm becoming very irritated with Apple's behavior in the app store. While it's
nothing new, I hate that they're restricting apps that compete with native
apps.

Sparrow? No push notifications for you. Dolphin? Here's an NC17 rating (wtf?)
for you, and by the way-- no way to change the default browser.

I'd really like to see a reasonable explanation for both of these scenarios by
Apple. My guess is the only reasonable explanation is that they want to
restrict and "protect" the user experience for that critical functionality in
a way that seems like an ornery chef who refuses to cook your steak medium
well.

~~~
Xuzz
I tried to explain it here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3707183>

More condensed, it's a combination of Apple not wanting each app re-
implementing push (or constant polling), Sparrow not willing to take on the
responsibility of being able to access your email, and Google not providing
low-privileges access for Sparrow to only be able to see the little amount of
data that push needs.

------
ksajadi
Lack of push was a deal breaker for me. They argue they don't want to store
the credentials on their servers, but at least with Gmail they don't need to
as it supports OAuth. The only issue I can see is holding the IMAP IDLE
connections open for thousands of users which can be a bi __* and a half to
get right. Although<http://www.nuevasync.com/> guys have done it successfully.

------
bbx
They posted several icon drafts on Dribbble to gather feedback from the users,
but it doesn't seem like they listened to the suggestions (or maybe they
didn't have time to submit a new icon?).

<http://dribbble.com/shots/442430-Sparrow-iPhone-icon>

------
Dramatize
Bought it as soon as it was available. Their OSX app was one of the first I
bought when switching to Mac.

------
switz
I truly appreciate their caution in storing my personal information on their
servers, but unfortunately it's just not practical to use until there is
proper push. Hopefully Apple hears their pleas and allow it. This app looks
gorgeous.

------
nodesocket
Just download and paid for the OSX app. It's really nice, love the unified
inbox, pulls labels from gMail, and also you can create e-mail alias like
(sales, support) and send from those alias. Highly recommended.

------
phil
Tiny swipable page indicator in the nav bar title: awesome.

Replacing swipe-to-delete on a message with back/pop: not so good.

It's really nicely done overall. Totally rethought from their desktop app.

------
dteoh
I wonder if they have plans to turn this into a universal app or if we will
have to purchase another version for the iPad (not that I'm complaining about
paying for a valuable product).

------
martind81
This app's really awesome. 2 small annoying things though, that I hope will be
fixed later is: › the freeze for a few seconds when I open the app (on an
iPhone 4S) › the lack of push

------
dawson
I'm using (and loving) it, until notifications are available then boxcar is a
temporary solution, for me at least.

~~~
railsjedi
Would love to see a writeup on how to set up boxcar for as a replacement.
Maybe Sparrow should implement their push notifications by just integrating
with Boxcar and making it idiot proof.

~~~
jdg
[http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/iphone/faq/articles/PushBoxcar...](http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/iphone/faq/articles/PushBoxcar.html)

And we'll have a blog post up at <http://blog.boxcar.io> here soon too. It's a
bit easier than the above now, as you can just choose "Sparrow" from the list
of Installed Clients to have it work.

------
cburgas
Just installed it on my iPhone. I like it so far but it definitely needs
landscape mode while writing an email

------
artursapek
Did one of the founders go to RISD? It was weird seeing my school's president
on the splash page.

------
sidwyn
I hate the swipe function on each cell. They should do it like how Tweetie
used to.

~~~
flyosity
Due to how they implemented the "panels" interface, swiping left-to-right on a
row will pull the entire panel, so they had to implement it as only right-to-
left to expose the actions. Kinda annoying, but it was a design decision
forced on them by another design decision they made.

~~~
sidwyn
I meant they should remove the gradual swipe, and do a full swipe once the
touch moves say 30px, instead of the cell moving along with my thumb.

------
railsjedi
Sparrow on iPhone is amazing. Takes an app like this to really show how old
and crusty the default mail app has become for power users.

I really hope this trend continues and we can see power user replacements for
Safari and Calendar as well.

------
smerickson
this is outstanding. Does anyone know if you can change the color of labels?
they don't match my gmail label colors.

------
joering2
Just quick question, since I lost a track of AppStore Developer's
guides&rules: wasn't there a rule that an app that is copying functionality
provided in iOS will not be approved? Was that changed? Aside of this email
app, I dont see any music players for my iPod other than the native Apple app
(I see plenty of opportunities for an upgrade).

~~~
Terretta
There are lots of alternative music players. I use the SRS Labs' "MyTunes" for
example, which is even iTunes Match savvy.

------
dbg9
Doesn't support Outlook... just a warning to anyone who assumed it would
support everything the default mail client on the phone supported.

------
sprog
If this doesn't support pop, it's not worth my time.

