

Y Combinator’s ReMail Finally Brings Full-Text Email Search To The iPhone - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/11/y-combinators-remail-brings-full-text-email-search-to-the-iphone/

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yish
Doesn't gmail already allow me to do much of this without having to trust
another company with all my email content. Plus nothing to download as its a
iphone optimized web app and nothing to pay in the future(unlike the proposed
$3.99 monthly fee).

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gaborcselle
Thanks, yish. Gmail has an offline store of the last 50-100 emails on your
phone - reMail has hundreds to thousands. Also, keep in mind that,
unfortunately, not everyone has Gmail - reMail works with non-Gmail accounts
as well. Also, we think that people will prefer a fast, native client to a web
client that takes some time to load in Safari.

That being said, I'm a big fan of Gmail (and worked on it myself way back in
the day ...)

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gms
Just to clarify, is reMail a standalone app also meant to replace Apple's Mail
on the iPhone?

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bjtitus
No, it is only meant to search email from IMAP/Gmail accounts (at the moment).

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redorb
am I the only one who avoids little $4/mo charges like the plague? They seem
to easy to forget, and of course they never remind you - that your paying them
....

\- Just my opinion -

Don't get me wrong, the subscription model is amazing; and a great way to
build a business; good luck.

~~~
alain94040
I wish there was a way that I'd get some credits from my ISP on my monthly
bill, that I would then spend online super-easily, with whomever I wanted.

This is why the Minitel in France worked so well. Services collected usage
fees directly from the carrier. It was painless for the end-user (except for
having to pay the monthly phone bill). And service providers could make a lot
of money if they provided useful online services. This was in the 80s...

~~~
drusenko
That's hilarious... I've never heard of the Minitel used in the contest of a
success -- for the most part, it was an absolute and catastrophic failure.

Minitel was supposed to be what the Internet is today -- but we're not all
using Minitels...

~~~
alain94040
Define failure.

In terms of user adoption, it was a huge success. Probably even higher than
the Internet today. Really computer-illiterate people managed to use it.

The number of services available was crazy. Most ads in the street would have
a "URL", just like now with the web.

It also was an early example of how free can serve as the basis for a very
profitable business model.

It succeeded in countries where the entire ecosystem was well thought out (and
controlled, kind of like the iPhone app store). Just the terminal by itself,
without the ecosystem, probably failed miserably in other countries, if they
tried to export it.

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markessien
This product seems to me fatally flawed in many ways. First of all, there is
very little new about it. It's email searching - nice, but searching email is
something I do once in a while, and when I need to do it I can usually wait
till I can log into gmail or put on my outlook client.

Secondly, what's with the price? This is offered for free everwhere, and it's
not a constant problem I always have. Actually, I cannot ever remember a time
when I really needed this, and I'm not going to shell out $4 EVERY month for
something that I may require twice a year. If it were an app you pay $1,99 for
and forget about it till you need it, I would probably buy it, but not a $4
subscription every month.

And furthermore, the platform already comes with an email client - they could
add the search thing anytime, effectively ending the business. I don't like
the product as a consumer, and it seems poor to me as a business too.

~~~
yish
Actually this for me is an issue, I use email search all the time, primarily
for when I travel and have to look up various confirmations codes,
reservations, etc. I also email myself all the time with notes, links, etc.
The only issue I am having is that 1) Gmail works quite well for me right now
2) I don't want to pay $4 a month for this 3) Another company with access to
my email However, while the app is free I will definitely test it out
especially appreciating Gabor's replies and comments here and elsewhere. If
it's truly faster and also provides me effective offline access to the info I
really need, well I would still have an issue paying $50 a year for it, but at
least it would be a consideration.

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ramoq
What technology is the server-side 'guts' built on (search etc)?

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chrisbolt
Isn't this one of the announced features in the 3.0 firmware?

Edit: nope, just headers apparently

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gaborcselle
Yeah, here's a good description: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/17/live-
from-apples-iphone-o...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/17/live-from-apples-
iphone-os-3-0-preview-event/)

They have an "All" button in their UI, but don't be fooled: It stands for "all
headers" :-)

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jmatt
For posterity the quote:

 _You can search from, to, subject, and all headers. If the message isn't on
your iPhone, you can continue that search on the server._

I have no idea what they mean by "continue that search on the server".

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ankhmoop
They may be referring to IMAP's server-side search support. If the message
isn't cached locally, the IMAP server can search the message headers, body,
etc on the phone's behalf.

See RFC 3501, section 6.4.4:

<http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3501.html>

~~~
gaborcselle
Yup, I believe that's what they're doing. The trouble with this approach is
that IMAP servers are painfully slow for server searches. Very few of them
build an index. Interestingly, doing searches against Gmail's IMAP is also
dog-slow :-(

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pclark
isn't this rather risky? eg: couldn't Apple simply decide to do this and they
could? is this a 3rd party app, eg: exit mail, enter remail, search, re-enter
mail?

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msie
Or Apple could choose to buy them.

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pclark
Apple hasn't had the best track record of acquisition over internal innovation
thought. There was coverflow and a few others sure, but lots weren't
acquired...

remember Konfabulator?

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jfarmer
iTunes itself was built around technology acquired from another company, IIRC.

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raganwald
An entertaining anecdote about iTunes from a competitor's point of view:

<http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/>

~~~
wallflower
Entertaining anecdote? Panic's Audion story is incredible. Read it!

