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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,290
30,367



sparrowlogo-1-150x150.jpg


Sparrow, a popular alternative mail client on OS X, has arrived on the iPhone.
Sparrow is an iPhone mail client designed with love to provide you with an efficient and pleasant mailing experience. With its panel navigation, its new threading system and many new features, you'll never look back.
Sparrow for iPhone makes extensive use of swipes to help power users navigate the app quickly, a unified inbox, and top-notch Gmail support.

The app is missing some features considered essential to any email app. By far the most important is push notifications. Sparrow has a special page explaining why the app doesn't have push, along with a notification list where users can sign up to receive an email if push notifications are added to the app. Also missing is support for POP email accounts -- Sparrow only works with IMAP accounts like Gmail, iCloud, AOL, or any custom IMAP account.

Aside from those limitations, the app has been well received, with positive reviews from MacStories, The Verge, and The Next Web.

Sparrow for iPhone is available for $2.99 on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Alternative Mail Client Sparrow Arrives on iPhone
 

macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,101
19,603
No push is a deal breaker. App looks great though. I'll wait until it has push (if ever).

I wish Apple would provide a way for 3rd party apps like this to replace stock apps. It's the same reason I don't use 3rd party camera apps: I can't get to them quickly from the home screen. Wish they would provide an API for it where an app needs to meet certain requirements to replace a stock app, and then socket it into place throughout the system.
 

Frankied22

macrumors 68000
Nov 24, 2010
1,775
577
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

I never understood the need for third party email applications. You can't replace the stock app, so now I have two mail apps going off constantly. Plus everytime I go to email something to someone it will just bring up the stock email app anyway. What does sparrow do that the stock app doesn't do? If anything it seems like you're paying $2.99 for a diff design and a lack of features; no support for certain email formats, and no push notifications.
 

OriginalMacRat

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2007
591
863
No push is a deal breaker. App looks great though. I'll wait until it has push (if ever).

If you want to be annoyed by push notifications, just use the built in iOS mail client.

Sparrow is a nice light weight app for viewing IMAP accounts when you need to.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

I never understood the need for third party email applications. You can't replace the stock app, so now I have two mail apps going off constantly. Plus everytime I go to email something to someone it will just bring up the stock email app anyway. What does sparrow do that the stock app doesn't do? If anything it seems like you're paying $2.99 for a diff design and a lack of features; no support for certain email formats, and no push notifications.

You can largely replace the stock Mail app: just remove or disable all mail accounts in the stock app, and it will no longer get mail or notify you. (Or, simply set it to check manually only, and disable its badges.) Toss the Mail app in a folder somewhere with Stocks and Game Center, and put Sparrow in your dock.

However, that one last problem remains: when an app creates an email (like game invitations, data backups, shared photos) it uses Mail. You might want to keep one account in Mail for that reason, then copy-paste any app-generated emails from there into Sparrow. Or even simpler: just let Mail handle app-generated emails (what’s the harm?) and use Sparrow for writing your OWN emails, and for receiving.

(For web page email links, maybe someone could make a bookmarklet that finds email addresses on the page and opens them in Sparrow. All Sparrow needs is a custom URI scheme, which it probably already has.)

Now, it isn’t worth it for me—I like the Mail app. But if you like Sparrow, you can replace Mail—mostly.
 

outphase

macrumors 65816
Jun 13, 2009
1,291
32
Parts Unknown
No push is a deal breaker. App looks great though. I'll wait until it has push (if ever).

I wish Apple would provide a way for 3rd party apps like this to replace stock apps. It's the same reason I don't use 3rd party camera apps: I can't get to them quickly from the home screen. Wish they would provide an API for it where an app needs to meet certain requirements to replace a stock app, and then socket it into place throughout the system.

Camera+ is getting there with apps like TweetBot and WordPress now able to use Camera+ for taking photos.
 

highdough

macrumors regular
Sep 10, 2008
192
64
My biggest beef with the iOS email is the absence of a junk mail folder and rules. I don't like getting email on it because I don't like wading through hundreds of emails that are 95% junk.
 

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,192
705
Holocene Epoch
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

No Yahoo email account support?
 

rezzo

macrumors regular
Jun 12, 2006
169
23
Chile
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

No Yahoo email account support?

From the Sparrow for iPhone site:
Sparrow supports all IMAP accounts:
Gmail, iCloud, MobileMe, AOL, Yahoo and any custom IMAP account.
(Warning: POP accounts are not supported (hotmail, MSN, Live...)
 
Last edited:

Watabou

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,425
755
United States
Do I have to have a paid yahoo account for me to be able to get my Yahoo mail? I know it works with Mail in iOS but it doesn't work with Mail on my mac so I just wanted to make sure. Maybe yahoo offers free email for a client but only for the smartphones.

The other thing that's preventing me from buying is that Apple doesn't allow you to switch default apps for email. That means mail on iOS will continue to be the default and every time I try to mail a link to someone, I first have to close the default Mail window that opens up and then switch to sparrow. It's a hassle to be honest.
 

glap1922

macrumors regular
Mar 13, 2009
120
0
3 bucks for no push is a bad deal. I have been looking forward to this app for a while, but no way am I spending cash on an app with no push. The stock mail app doesn't work well with gmail folders and starred emails, and the gmail app is just plain bad. What a shame.
 

rwilliams

macrumors 68040
Apr 8, 2009
3,740
1,006
Raleigh, NC
I can live without push email. I got tired of the phone going off all the time from new messages and decided to switch to manual. Now I don't have to be bothered until I'm ready to check my mail.
 

DoghouseMike

macrumors regular
Jan 18, 2011
159
13
UK
I can live without push email. I got tired of the phone going off all the time from new messages and decided to switch to manual. Now I don't have to be bothered until I'm ready to check my mail.

+100

Checking email when you have the time/desire/attention (ie decide to) to is so much better than letting some notification widget tell you when you should be doing something. Highly recommend this.
Also stops it going off when you're trying to sleep, have a meal, other things.
Like others have said, it'd be nice to be able to set default apps though, my "bin" folder is now full :/
 

TheOriginalKi

macrumors 6502
Jan 2, 2011
336
2
Belfast
Ah man I got excited and would have paid for this now for both my iPhone AND Mac if the iPhone app had push. I'll stick with stock for now as I value push over Gmail labels...
 

yetanotherdave

macrumors 68000
Apr 27, 2007
1,768
12
Bristol, England
I suspect they'll have push soon enough,

In the mean time, I have the main mail app giving me push notifications, and I simply open the sparrow app to read the mails...

I hope iOS6 lets you change some default apps, I would also like to see a way to force certain URL types to use an app, like any twitter.com/... url should open in Tweetbot, not safari. Amazon.co.uk in the amazon app, not safari

(and yes, I have sent feedback to apple, rather than just complaining on a forum)
 

Flitzy

Guest
Oct 20, 2010
215
0
Am I missing something?

Why would you pay $3 for a Mail app when iOS comes with a built in one that works pretty darn well?
 

w00master

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2002
1,126
345
Am I missing something?

Why would you pay $3 for a Mail app when iOS comes with a built in one that works pretty darn well?


That's like asking why some prefer a 3rd part mail app for the Mac. Here's one:

Some of us really love the gmail feature set (like labels, etc.)

It's also the reason why I *don't* use the Mac Mail app either. I use Sparrow.

w00master
 
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