For those who like using native email applications (like Apple Mail etc.) but are frustrated that they don’t integrate well with Gmail, Sparrow for Mac and iPhone (an iPad version is currently in development) is something you should definitely check out (they have a Lite version on both platforms). Sparrow provides the best Gmail experience in a native app I have found. The UI is very clean and well thought out. Another nice touch is it’s Facebook and Gravatar integration (for contact pictures) and Dropbox integration.
What’s a “gmail experience”? Gmail exposes both pop3 and IMAP (and iCal for Google Calendar), any MUA (mail user agent) can work with it and provide any experience it wants.
Gmail provides many “non-stnadard” features like labels, starred, priority inbox, conversation threads, all mail etcetera, that aren’t part of the IMAP standard. That’s what I mean by “Gmail experience.”
any MUA (mail user agent) can work with it and provide any experience it wants.
This may be true, but Sparrow is the only client I have found that provides the experience I want: Gmail in a native app.
In my experience some clients do some things well (e.g. Mail seems to have conversation threads working really well) and there are tricks to getting other feature to work (like create a smart folder that looks for all flagged messages, which would be the equivalent of Starred). However, with Sparrow you just provide your Gmail credentials and everything just works.
Sparrow
For those who like using native email applications (like Apple Mail etc.) but are frustrated that they don’t integrate well with Gmail, Sparrow for Mac and iPhone (an iPad version is currently in development) is something you should definitely check out (they have a Lite version on both platforms). Sparrow provides the best Gmail experience in a native app I have found. The UI is very clean and well thought out. Another nice touch is it’s Facebook and Gravatar integration (for contact pictures) and Dropbox integration.
All in all, it’s a pleasure to use.
What’s a “gmail experience”? Gmail exposes both pop3 and IMAP (and iCal for Google Calendar), any MUA (mail user agent) can work with it and provide any experience it wants.
Gmail provides many “non-stnadard” features like labels, starred, priority inbox, conversation threads, all mail etcetera, that aren’t part of the IMAP standard. That’s what I mean by “Gmail experience.”
This may be true, but Sparrow is the only client I have found that provides the experience I want: Gmail in a native app.
In my experience some clients do some things well (e.g. Mail seems to have conversation threads working really well) and there are tricks to getting other feature to work (like create a smart folder that looks for all flagged messages, which would be the equivalent of Starred). However, with Sparrow you just provide your Gmail credentials and everything just works.