Shortwave, a Startup By Former Google Employees, Wants To Bring Back Google Inbox (techcrunch.com) 21
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google's Inbox experiment was a glorious thing while it lasted. Launched as an invitation-only service in 2014, it was the company's next-gen email client. Because it was so good, it's no surprise Google shut it down in 2019. Thankfully, though, a group of ex-Google/Firebase employees is now resurrecting the Inbox experience -- with a bit of the Slack user experience mixed in, too.
As Lee told me, the team took two important inspirations from Inbox. "One is the idea that you should work with your email in groups," he said, referring to Inbox's ability to bundle emails by topic. "As the volume of email grows in your inbox, it becomes impractical just to page through every single email. Even if you have all the keyboard shortcuts and your app is super optimized, just scanning through all that stuff takes a long time." While you want to know about automated emails like calendar notifications for example, chances are you've already accepted those invites in your calendar, for example, so marking all those as read or snooze them for later with a couple of clicks saves a lot of time. In addition, the team also built Shortwave with the idea that your inbox, whether you like it or not, is a to-do list.
As Lee told me, the team took two important inspirations from Inbox. "One is the idea that you should work with your email in groups," he said, referring to Inbox's ability to bundle emails by topic. "As the volume of email grows in your inbox, it becomes impractical just to page through every single email. Even if you have all the keyboard shortcuts and your app is super optimized, just scanning through all that stuff takes a long time." While you want to know about automated emails like calendar notifications for example, chances are you've already accepted those invites in your calendar, for example, so marking all those as read or snooze them for later with a couple of clicks saves a lot of time. In addition, the team also built Shortwave with the idea that your inbox, whether you like it or not, is a to-do list.
Well, it sounded good (Score:3)
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until I read " -- with a bit of the Slack user experience mixed in, too". Pass
I donno...having one integrated inbox would be super freaking handy in cases where you were required to use Slack for work... I'm just thrilled the email side is working. I just cleared out a backlog of ~475 emails sitting in my inbox in about 15 minutes. I immediately signed up for a paid account. I didn't realize just how much I missed Inbox.
So good it was supressed (Score:2)
Google kills things because they are not popular, not consistent with the core product of advertising, or just too expensive. The value of Google products is that they are free. They are free because they monetize the user. Products like the office apps are genuinely good, but Google does not support them to keep the, current.
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I didnt leave it in the mailbox "because I wanted it organized" or any other thing these myopic cunts want their email client to be. What I do, is when there is information in an email that I want organized, I organized that information outside of the email client because why the fuck is the email client the
How are they funding the 'free' plan? (Score:3)
I miss Google Inbox, so I'm glad to see someone is resurrecting the interface style. But, how are they planning to fund the 'Free' plan level. Servers don't run for free, and devs don't dev for $0. Are they actually going to cover their costs from business subscriptions, or do they plan on harvesting inboxes?
Time to read the privacy policy, and even then I'm not sure it can be believed.
Harvesting inboxes it is! (Score:4, Informative)
Email Data: we collect your email address and the contents of any emails and messages you draft or receive in our Service, as well as associated metadata (such as the time sent).
https://www.shortwave.com/poli... [shortwave.com]
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With shortwave I can't figure out how to move things between bundles. It has bundled an AirBnB receipt with some newsletters, so, as with Inbox, it seems you need to train it a bit.
Inbox let you delete all the items in a bundle
Some Inbox features incorporated into GMail (Score:2)
Features like snoozing emails and reminders, and rudimentary grouping, are now part of GMail's standard offering.
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Features like snoozing emails and reminders, and rudimentary grouping, are now part of GMail's standard offering.
Sure. It's just done in the most terribly-designed and unfriendly way.
pay for a gmail interface? (Score:2)
You want me to pay for an interface to gmail?
I don't want gmail to start, so you already lost me there. But to pay on top of that, no thanks.
My traditional email client works just fine.
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You want me to pay for an interface to gmail?
I don't want gmail to start, so you already lost me there. But to pay on top of that, no thanks.
My traditional email client works just fine.
User incredulous at having to pay for something even though he doesn't want it or need it, but has to go out of his way to post it on Slashdot to make sure everyone knows he's incredulous. News at 11.
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If Gmail sucks and you need to pay for a better interface then you need a different service and you don't need a new UI for $/month.
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If Gmail sucks and you need to pay for a better interface then you need a different service and you don't need a new UI for $/month.
I don't pay for GMail. Work does. I'm forced to use the terrible GMail interface. Sure, I could hook up something else (Thunderbird, Mutt, etc...) via IMAP, but they aren't much better. I've been using Shortwave for ~2 hours now and have managed to get my inbox cleaned out back to the date Inbox was knifed by Google. I am happy to pay for a better interface. Especially one that increases my productivity *that* much.
As for using a different service, I do have GSuite for a personal account...I already
Invitation-only (Score:2)
Did they think people would be desperate to get it if they made it an exclusive club? Internet stuff thrives on critical mass, and being exclusive is the sure fire way of keeping things small. No one cares about being part of an exclusive club, other than snobbish pricks.
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We don't need no stinkin' groups (Score:3)
"One is the idea that you should work with your email in groups," he said, referring to Inbox's ability to bundle emails by topic. "As the volume of email grows in your inbox, it becomes impractical just to page through every single email. Even if you have all the keyboard shortcuts and your app is super optimized, just scanning through all that stuff takes a long time."
Even with groups you have to scan through cruft. The additional problem with groups is that people change topics (subjects) all the time, even when they're really talking about the same topic, which makes auto-grouping by topic problematic at best, and confusing at worst.
The solution for managing reams of emails? Learn how to move messages to different folders based on your needs (topic, client, project, etc). Learn how to use your email client's features for searching and sorting. In other words, learn how to be an organized human being, and you won't end up being one of those idiots with a gazillion unread messages in the inbox who never reads and responds to messages because they consider "inbox zero" to be an impossible goal.
seems useless (Score:1)
Thunderbird (Score:2)
Seriously, Thunderbird solved basically all of these problems over a decade ago. You don't really need anything fancy to do something that is not fancy.
Do I need a can opener that uses AI and is connected to the internet? No. Same thing here.