Minor nit: it's a little annoying that the the site takes over horizontal panning. It effectively makes the swipe forward/backward gestures useless in Chrome. The information could have been presented in an equally effective manner with a simple vertical page layout.
The problem with e-mails are not the front ends we use with them, but the protocol itself.
Everything is transferred as text, which means binary files (embedded images, attachments, etc) have to be Base64 encoded. This adds a CPU overhead, but most importantly inflates file sizes by ~30%
Then there's security issues; the vast majority of mail servers default to clear text rather than SSL. But that wouldn't be so bad if there was some inbuilt method for end-to-end encryption. Sadly there isn't, so we have a whole plethora of 3rd party hacks for the mail client - most of which are incompatible with each other.
And while we're on the subject of clients - things are a complete mess there. Trying to design a HTML email that will work on most clients is like trying to design a webpage in the 90s. So we need a more standardised way of displaying that data - and if that means forking HTML for email purposes specifically, then so be it.
Also, horizontal scrolling webpages are counter intuitive and a complete pain for most users who only have vertical scrolling on their mice / trackpads. Quite frankly, if that's an advert of their product design then it leaves me less than excited about the 'innovations' they'd make to email clients.
I know all this seems highly critical against this project - which isn't really the best etiquette on HN. But honestly, why are the old ARPNET protocols (FTP, email, etc) still in widespread use when we have the technology and experience to release vastly improved specifications?
The site has very annoying scrolling on the page (Chrome on Mac) -- it seems to scroll horizontally when I do the motion for scrolling vertically. Took a while to figure out what the heck was happening, and it still feels non-intuitive.
An entire page of whinges about the web site, instead of the app itself. I guess this is some kind of progress.
Here's one vote for all of you to submit comments like that to the webmaster instead of posting them here and reserve your breath on HN for comments about the subject instead.
2ndly, if an app is boasting about redesigning the way we use email, yet gets the fundamentals of the way we use a webpage completely wrong, then I think criticisms are justified. After all, it's not like this website isn't being used to show case the developers skills.
I am using Chrome on my Mac. The horizontal rolling is very very laggy. Usually, when I swipe right, I can go back to the previous webpage I was on. But I can't do that with this website.
An aside: most headlines I read that are written as questions invariable end up answering in the negative in the content. So regardless of the solution I'd either not click the link or click it already in the wrong frame of mind.
