Alternative Mail Client Sparrow Arrives on iPhone

[MacRumors]

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]

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.

 

[charlieegan3]

i suppose this can only be good news.

 

[Frankied22]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Munkypoo7]

Finally it arrives. Take my $3!

 

[highdough]

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]

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]

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...)

 

[Watabou]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...

 

[John.B]

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...)

doh!

:facepalm:

 

[yetanotherdave]

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)

 

[Stonefly]

Here's what they have to say about push.

http://sparrowmailapp.com/push.php

 

[jonnysods]

Looks good, I hope that IOS6 has more improvements to the mail and reminders app.

 

[SBlue1]

no push????

 

[John.B]

Looks good, I hope that IOS6 has more improvements to the mail and reminders app.

I'd like separate email signatures, one per account. Can Sparrow do that?

That is the one feature I've wanted since the day the 3GS came out...

 

[Flitzy]

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?

 

[Akarin]

I understand those saying that push is bad but as far as I'm concerned (and my workflow), I need push notifications for mail.

 

[w00master]

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