Windows 8 Mail Leaves Users Pining For the Desktop — or Even Their Phones 308
jbrodkin writes "The e-mail client in Windows 8 is the shell of a potentially good application — but Microsoft hasn't given it the proper care it deserves. With less than a month before Windows 8 hits RTM, Mail is a mess that doesn't support IMAP, can't connect to servers with self-signed certificates, and lacks basic features like flagging messages for followup. Metro Mail is feature-deficient compared not just to other desktop and tablet apps — it's behind Microsoft's own phone platform. Whether used on a tablet or desktop, this in-depth look concludes that Metro Mail in its current form will have users pining for a real desktop application."
Have sympathy for poor old Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Give Windows 8 users a real email client and cannibalize Outlook/Office sales
Give Windows 8 users a stripped down client and get pilloried in the press and taken to the woodshed by Apple.
Good ol' Microsoft internal politics at its finest.
Tablets are great (Score:5, Insightful)
Tablets are great, and an optimized tablet UI can be both intuitive and efficient so long as you're using a fucking tablet.
Seriously... it's like MS is trying to put the umbrella down the chimney up for this one.
ship it, then finish it (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS is one of MS's biggest problems IMHO.
Compare that to some of their competitors that will suddenly toss out a fully functional product, available NOW. Not complete and polished maybe, but at least it works acceptably well just out of the gate, and isn't months away from release.
That crap only works when selling to businesses. If they're going to compete in the private sector they're going to have to get their act straight and get some hustle going.
Semifunctional products scheduled for release months from now won't compete well with products that work that are available today. You'll either enter the market with few available new customers or catch all sorts of bad PR about needing several patches just to get it working as expected/advertised (or both) like the others already in the market already do.
Re:So you're telling me (Score:5, Insightful)
people still use email clients!?
I certainly do. Best way for me to manage my multiple email accounts with multiple servers.
This thing has a Vista-rushed-to-market feel about it.
Re:Have sympathy for poor old Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems the user can either install Outlook or get e.g. Thunderbird. How many people use Windows in a business setting and then don't use MS Office? (And when you do that you get Outlook.) So for desktop users I don't see any problems. (Apart from the Metro interface itself that is... I don't think anybody wants that on the desktop.)
Re:So you're telling me (Score:5, Insightful)
I converted back from web-based shit email (had enough of google's mail, yahoo's mail and all the rest of the big CRAP mail ui's they throw at us) and I went back to thunderbird. have been loving it for the last year or so, now. its great. local typing, no lost stuff, no hangs, no delays, no network-reachability issues or timeouts, no ads, no jscript, no worries about blocking and maintenance.
my life is a whole lot simpler using good old IMAP and local email pulled down.
the cloud can go fuck itself ;) I'm back with local apps and enjoying the speed of my machine and a *stable* UI experience.
Re:So you're telling me (Score:5, Insightful)
This thing has a Vista-rushed-to-market feel about it.
The thing about vista almost everyone who ended up with, spent money upgrading to 7 because it fixed everything.
Re:So you're telling me (Score:2, Insightful)
"no lost stuff, no hangs, no delays, no network-reachability issues or timeouts, no ads, no jscript, no worries about blocking and maintenance"
which describes my gmail experience.
With the added bonus I can access it anywhere.
You? you're pretty much a slashdot hipster.
Re:Ready? Oops! Oh noooooOOOO! (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh. Any OS or Mail app worth a damn has smart presets.
OS X Mail.app has Gmail as an account type. Select it and all it asks for is your username and password. Done. It's even part of the OS set up.
You can also pick me.com, hotmail, yahoo, Exchange or Advanced (custom).
At no point are you asked for a server or setting for anything but a user and pass, except with Exchange and Advanced.
Re:So you're telling me (Score:5, Insightful)
This thing has a Vista-rushed-to-market feel about it.
I agree. Every other roll out MS has done was a money grab. 98 should have been 98SE, ME should have been XP. Vista should have been 7. I have been telling people for a year to avoid 8 until it is 8+ or whatever. Of course they would avoid using "+" on anything because it might bring Google to mind... but if history is any gauge 8 will suck so hard you'll need a CRT to avoid screen puckering.
Re:Summy wrong, it does use IMAP (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it supports Exchange, Hotmail and Gmail. If you tell me "supports IMAP" I'd better be able to point it at my IMAP server and have it work or you're a goddamn liar.
Re:So you're telling me (Score:5, Insightful)
You? Your pretty much a 'I only use google products' hipster.
Lots of us have many mail accounts, and many/most/all of them are not with Google. A good mail client is invaluable when you use many mail servers.
Re:Have sympathy for poor old Microsoft... (Score:2, Insightful)
Outlook is a absolutely terrible mail client that no-one should be paying for. The most important feature in email clients nowadays is search. Outlook search is terrible - finding the message you want is almost impossible in the default search and is worse yet in the advanced search. Gmail has been doing this for properly for years - it just works, so why do I have to set up an exchange environment to get an email service which is worse than gmail (or Google Apps)? It's not like it's any cheaper!
Re:Ready? Oops! Oh noooooOOOO! (Score:5, Insightful)
Adblock doesn't download for offline viewing and backup, or replace the whole web page interface.
Re:The bigger point: Win 8 *has* a mail client... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Outlook Express doesn't count...
Why not? it is better than those other two you mentioned.