AOL's Innovative Card-Based Email Service, Alto, Comes To iOS And Android

Remember AOL? The company best known for its email service? Three years ago, it released a Pinterest-like platform for desktop email called Alto. Today AOL announced the release of Alto for iOS and Android -- nearly a year after it began beta testing it. FastCompany writes: The app's design is based on the idea that email has shifted from a communication tool to more of a transactional system -- today's inboxes are filled with receipts, order confirmations, and reservations, rather than personal messages. To combat this flood of data, Alto automatically sorts email into stacks, such as "travel," "photos," "files," "shopping," and "personal."

fully encrypted end to end?

[OutOnARock]

if it is, I might just have to love AOL for the first time

Re:

[networkBoy]

it is encrypted, but knowing AOL the key is prefixed to the message with trivial encoding.

So ... folders

[raymorris]

> Innovative ... sorts email into stacks, such as "travel," "photos," "files," "shopping,"

So .. folders? Very innovative.

PS - MH had subfolders by 1979

[raymorris]

To see just HOW innovative this idea is, MH had folders, and even subfolders, by 1979. Also, certainly by 1990 procmail was automatically putting mail into different folders. I have no doubt other commenters will point out much earlier implementations.

Re:

[chipschap]

GNUS apparently dates to 1988, and as you mention, MH goes back even earlier.

Trying to repackage very old ideas as the latest thing is a marketing ploy. Still, I thank AOL for all those free coasters they sent me in the mail back when.

Re:

[jarlsberg71]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Also, the popular mailbox file format it uses

[raymorris]

Today, MH is mostly relevant for the same reason pkzip is - it's storage format is used by many, many other programs. Most imap servers and email clients can use MH format and the derivative Maildir to store mail. So it's kind of like the zip of email storage.

Not just any old folders

[PatientZero]

No, AOL has invented named folders.

Mind. Blown.

Re:

[aix tom]

Of course instead of some sort of defined rules that you are able to understand, they probably will employ some sort of "AI" in the "Cloud", so that your trip confirmation to Hamburg will end up in your recipes stack, while some office themed porn will pop up at your next presentation to management.

All Bullshit

[sycodon]

Hides things in folder, miss-classifies them and doesn't return the same search result twice.

When people say they are going to make your life easier, you can bet they are just going to fuck it even more.

I've Been Doing That for Years

[RobotRunAmok]

...with message rules in Thunderbird.

I must be a super genius tech entrepreneur and didn't know it...

No thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

a Pinterest-like platform for desktop email

That's about as appealing as a Jon Katz platform for news articles.

Re:

[Geeky]

One for the old timers that!

Well there is this one app...

[Guyle]

AOL's own Google Inbox, eh? Very original and innovative.

Re:

[Geeky]

Yeah, but Google launched that a couple of years ago so they're probably due to discontinue it through lack of interest...

... which may be fair in the case of Inbox. Does anyone actually think it's better than normal mail?

Re:

[Bartles]

It's not. I find myself regularly missing important messages in Inbox.

Re:

[rickb928]

I use it almost exclusively, and I don't miss emails.

It won.t slap you up the head and tell you to read stuff.

Re:Well there is this one app...

[Guyle]

I actually enjoy it. Once I trained it a little to understand what was an update versus a promo, it does a pretty good job of sorting my stuff. Things that don't get automatically sorted stand out more to me since they don't have a category attached. Plus just checking "done" on everything helps me keep my inbox clean without actually deleting anything. I wouldn't want to go back to regular GMail.

Re:

[Geeky]

I tried. Maybe I just needed to give it more time, but I'm pretty comfortable with my Gmail workflow.

Re:

[Timothy Hartman]

I can't wait to see it preinstalled on their DROID and prominent. Hopefully Verizon can also put every one of AOL's crappy news sites that have an app in them so each phone comes with a full hundred apps you can't get rid of.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yes Google has had this for about 2 years... and I've had it disabled for exactly as long.

Read the TOS - it scans your email for advertising

[generic_screenname]

According to the TOS, and common sense, this is scanning your emails to serve you ads. Granted, Gmail does the same thing, so maybe no one will care. It is still worth mentioning.

Re:Read the TOS - it scans your email for advertis

[swb]

The only way you will be able to trust any kind of AI for sorting personal information will be if the software is something you buy and own.

But any AI development will be built around monetizing your information, so they will always be "free" and untrustable.

Please stop

[H3lldr0p]

I really don't know where to begin. This is another reinvention of the wheel. Something I'm seeing more and more of these days. Don't know if it's because I'm approaching a certain age or if communication is just happening faster and faster so we see more of it in a shorter amount of time.

Don't think I'm knocking it. I'm not. It's obvious someone needed this and didn't know how or where to look for the contemporary counterpart in current clients. Or because current clients made it too hard to figure out. We all have different brains and think our process out differently. Just because it's obvious to you or I how to script this in our gmail doesn't mean that everyone else sees it that way.

What bothers me is the breathless headlines. The purposeful exaggeration. The constant commercialization. That, more than anything, I'm tired of.

No wonder advertisement is in trouble.

Re:

[Neuronwelder]

Much Agreed, H3lldr0p, In the early 1950's, people used to watch TV on a 5" screen. The '90's to the Millennium age, the exaggeration was on HUGE screens. Now were back to tiny screens again.. I guess the public can be sold on ANYTHING If it is packaged correctly.

Remember AOL? You just had to to say it.

[wjcofkc]

Never heard of this. Although I do remember AOL from back in the days when it was exclusively a walled garden, and almost everyone subscribed to one or more of a variety of walled gardens. CompuServe, *Prodigy, etc... I was late in the game when it came to the likes of enjoying Archie, Veronica, WAIS, and so on... I remember waiting for the upcoming, world conquering Xanadu that was going to knock the block of this web thing.

*I remember having fondness for Prodigy in all of it's 320x240 glory over anythi

this was an innovative idea 5 years ago

[thebullshitpatrol]

You guys heard of "Google Inbox"? Or Gmail's native tagging that has been around for years? :^) Also I hate "cards". I've tried to like Google Now and Android Wear, but anytime I hear "cards" I think "information that I would never open Google Now for in hopes of accidentally finding". Further, I don't think I'd ever open Google Now. Want to know the weather? Better open google now and hope google thinks I care what the weather is right now.

Re:

[kriston]

No, no no. Alto was out before Google Inbox. The Google Inbox service was a ripoff of an early 2014 version of Alto.

This was a few months after AOL Reader was launched to lure people who were abandoned by Google Reader.

Remember AOL?

[Chelloveck]

I must be remembering the wrong AOL. The one I remember was best known for sending unsolicited floppy disks and CD ROMs in the mail.

Re:

[twotacocombo]

What, the free coasters? Those things saved the finish on many a desk, back in my day. They were also crazy fun to throw in the microwave.

Re:

[david_thornley]

I know a guy who got enough of them together to cover his car. Sparkly!

In the same sentence?

[david_thornley]

It just feels weird to have "AOL" and "innovative" in the same headline without a "not" or a "was" in there somewhere.