Mac OS X Leopard: Mail 3.0

[MacRumors]

AppleInsider continues with their Leopard series with a look at Mac OS X Leopard's Mail 3.0.

In Leopard, Mail 3.0 (below) gets its biggest leap forward yet. Its window follows the unified Leopard window appearance, with squared off window corners that look like more like iTunes. As with earlier releases, many of its new enhancements come from integration with other new or improved services in Mac OS X.

The new Mail client introduces ToDo lists an Notes which are expected to eventually sync with the iPhone. Apple also reintroduces Data Detectors:

Emails in Mail that contain a date, phone number, or a contact (such within an email signature) are tagged with a drop down menu. Click on it and select "Create New Contact," and Data Detectors will scrape together as much as it can from the email: the name, mailing address, email address, phone and fax numbers, and copy them into a contact entry ready for your editing (below).

Apple also details many of the new Mail features on their website and provides a QuickTime movie demonstration.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is rumored to be released on October 26th, with Gold Master expected to be declared this week.

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[Eidorian]

I really like the history they provide to an application.

I live in Mail.

 

[rubberduck007]

I really like the history they provide to an application.

I live in Mail.

I've never used it - I have to use the shiiiiiiiite Novell Groupwise here at work - what a pile of poo!

 

[oldMac]

Data Detectors - Welcome Back to 1997?

"Apple also reintroduces Data Detectors..."

Does everybody else remember how cool this feature was when we got it back in 1997? (Somewhere around there.)

I have missed this functionality. Thank goodness they remembered to bring it back!

 

[flopticalcube]

I remember using Mail's ancestor in 1989 on my first NeXT cube. It was great then and its even greater now.

 

[shoelessone]

I would love to use Mail, but it doesn't properly sync with gmail (I want the two to stay in sync, if I sent an email via mail I want it in my sent folder, if I read an email on gmail, I want it "read" in Mail, etc, etc).

If there was a good solution to this, I'd love to use mail while at home.

 

[j-a-x]

iCal already has a to-do list. Does that mean I'll have two separate to-do lists (one in iCal and one in Mail)? Or are they dropping to-do in iCal? I don't like either of these options because my iCal to-do syncs with my Nokia cell phone and I use it a lot. I also have a widget for viewing it in dashboard. I hope, if anything the Mail to-do list will integrate with the iCal to-do list.

 

[Macinposh]

How about making the mail stable?

If you create 2-4 new mails, put in 5MB+ of files in each you are gonna run in trouble..

About 25% of the time the Mail crashes.


Hopefully they will fix the file handling and performance.

 

[samh004]

I hope .Mac gets a compatibility update when Leopard is released to have an accurate "Notes" folder online. When I briefly tried out Leopard months ago, the Notes folder online was just a standard folder and didn't work well, so I expect official compatibility when it ships.

 

[caspartheghost]

There are so many basic things missing from Mail (like even bullet points) and so many incompatibilities and problems that need addressing before Apple starts adding features. I mean, how is 'making it look like the rest of Leopard' a big step forward? It's so... So what?

 

[grappler]

Wonder if there are plans to let Mail use the Gmail api to talk to a gmail account?

I like that the mail app in the iphone can read gmail, but it doesn't behave like gmail. It doesn't do the threaded conversations, it doesn't distinguish between sent and received messages, and the read/unread tags don't sync up.

It would be best of all worlds if both Mail and iPhone's mail app synced with gmail, imho.

 

[uraniumwilly]

I remember when were supposed to be composing our email using voice recognition by 2000.

[Ducks]

But hey, looks nice. I'll use the heck out of it.

 

[swindmill]

iCal already has a to-do list. Does that mean I'll have two separate to-do lists (one in iCal and one in Mail)? Or are they dropping to-do in iCal? I don't like either of these options because my iCal to-do syncs with my Nokia cell phone and I use it a lot. I also have a widget for viewing it in dashboard. I hope, if anything the Mail to-do list will integrate with the iCal to-do list.

They are integrated. If you make a To-Do in Mail, it will appear in iCal.

 

[Donnacha]

Lovely ...

... but will I be able to use it with my GMail and Google Apps email accounts?

 

[bigjohn]

I like how all these things are eventually expected to sync with the iphone but they never do

 

[xUKHCx]

I like how all these things are eventually expected to sync with the iphone but they never do

never do ???

Leopard hasn't been released yet, apple wouldn't want to give away any (potential) secrets before launch.

 

[coolbreeze]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3)

I like how all these things are eventually expected to sync with the iphone but they never do

Whatever enhancements they do to Mail, I really hope todos sync with the iPhone. Not web-based, but an actuall app.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Lovely ...

... but will I be able to use it with my GMail and Google Apps email accounts?

I have to agree with Donnacha here... does it integrate properly with GMail? (I don't use the other Google Apps services at the moment, but I might in the future.)

 

[superleccy]

One of the very few things I miss about Windows (and there really aren't many) is the formatting toolbar in Outlook (or Outlook Express) compose window. You can change font, colour, size and emphasis without having to open separate font and colour inspectors.

I've seen this pi$s off a few potential switchers.

SL

 

[deep]

I have to agree with Donnacha here... does it integrate properly with GMail? (I don't use the other Google Apps services at the moment, but I might in the future.)

I'm not sure why everyone is asking about GMail compatibility. I use the current version of Mail to read my GMail account with no problems or issues. It's set up as a POP account. IMAP for GMail would be welcomed but Google's policy is to implement POP instead to save on overhead.

Am I missing something here?

 

[BornAgainMac]

Please shoot me now. I keep refreshing the Apple.com page wishing for a countdown. Looking forward to upgraded to Mail 3.0. I like that they are making it more than just simple email.

 

[Lepton]

GMail doesn't do IMAP

I thought the problem with GMail integration is on GMail's side? GMail does POP and not IMAP, that seems to be the main problem. But, I'm not familiar with GMail APIs and what they might be able to do.

 

[shoelessone]

I'm not sure why everyone is asking about GMail compatibility. I use the current version of Mail to read my GMail account with no problems or issues. It's set up as a POP account. IMAP for GMail would be welcomed but Google's policy is to implement POP instead to save on overhead.

Am I missing something here?

Yes, we want everything synced.

If I read an email in Mail, I want it to be read in gMail.

Not really Apple/Mails fault, but still the issue most of us have.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm not sure why everyone is asking about GMail compatibility. I use the current version of Mail to read my GMail account with no problems or issues. It's set up as a POP account. IMAP for GMail would be welcomed but Google's policy is to implement POP instead to save on overhead.

Am I missing something here?

Yes - you make a valid point, which makes a lot of sense. However, you overlooked the fact that GMail does not currently sync correctly through Mail.app with portable devices like the iPhone and with services like .Mac. That's what people like myself are looking for.

 

[Donnacha]

I'm not sure why everyone is asking about GMail compatibility. I use the current version of Mail to read my GMail account with no problems or issues. It's set up as a POP account. IMAP for GMail would be welcomed but Google's policy is to implement POP instead to save on overhead.

Am I missing something here?

As someone actually using it, you'll know this better than me but what I'm going on about is the way in which GMail uses a non-standard folder system and that makes things messy when hooking into it with a POP client, in particular the way it handles Sent mail.

Obviously, it is Google, not Apple, who have veered from the standard BUT, given that Gmail and Google Apps are used by a huge number of Mac users, Apple should step up and add to Mail the additional logic necessary to properly interpret Google's system - it is an absolute travesty that some of the most advanced users are forced to use Webmail while an otherwise great mail application sits there unused.