#POSTBOX FOR IPHONE ARCHIVE#
#POSTBOX FOR IPHONE PORTABLE#

But I can tell you that building with technology thatвЂ™s native to the platform may provide less flexibility with updating live remotely and other вЂserver sideвЂ™ actions, but what it does bring (when done right) is pure speed.ДЄnd when a system like Mailbox is as focused on quick actions being taken to email вЂtasksвЂ™, itвЂ™s important that the app around it feels just as quick. IвЂ™m not here to tell you that you canвЂ™t build an insanely fast HTML5 app, because IвЂ™ve seen some super quick ones. Something that tends to escape apps which heavily utilize viewports that display web content. Swiping, tapping, reading and moving between screens is blazing fast and feels very lightweight. This is a different approach than some other email apps like Gmail, and ends up making it feel lightning-quick. ItвЂ™s built almost entirely using frameworks native to the platform. вЂњOnce we started using it we knew we were onto something,вЂќ says Underwood, вЂњemail inside of our app felt fast and light in a way other clients hadnвЂ™t felt.вЂќДЄnd the app does feel fast, for several reasons. Underwood says that a prototype took about 3 and a half weeks. This meant that Mailbox came together fairly quickly, as the underlying structures were already there to handle messages like tasks. Though its external veneer is that of a task manager, Orchestra was built on the bones of a real-time messaging system.

We began to feel like we had to at least try the angle.вЂќ вЂњBut as we pushed on the concept we began to realize that there was so much about mobile email that just plain sucked. вЂњStartups donвЂ™t create new email clients and live to talk about it,вЂќ jokes Underwood. This would treat it as a task to be managed, rather than an email to be organized or read.ДЄs the company realized that what they were creating would eventually become an email client, there were reservations. Underwood says that, using the companyвЂ™s вЂњiterative, ask-wild-questions-and-defer-judgment sort of design process,вЂќ they came up with the idea to just send every email to Orchestra. These two inboxes caused them to re-evaluate how theyвЂ™d handle the duplication of task lists. so at best we had a world where now you had two inboxes to maintain.вЂќ As we grew, though, we realized that even our most active users still had plenty of tasks in their inbox, mostly because not everyone they worked with used orchestra. вЂњWe started orchestra based on the insight that nearly everyone used their email as a terrible to-do list, and designed Orchestra to be a way to side-step email by sending one another tasks directly. вЂњThere really wasnвЂ™t any one single leap,вЂќ says Underwood. I spoke to co-founder Gentry Underwood about the inspiration for the product and whether there was a logical jump that made this new method feel вЂrightвЂ™. Mailbox comes from the team that built the task manager Orchestra.

#POSTBOX FOR IPHONE PORTABLE#

But it is something wildly different from other email apps, and it allows you speedily execute these actions on a small portable screen with a series of swipes. This is definitely not an app made for extensive inbox organization, and there are some limits which IвЂ™ll explain later. Quick, decisive action that can stop the bleeding and help you to keep it manageable while youвЂ™re on the go. ItвЂ™s a clever arrangement that allows for, above all, triage of your inbox. The time-shifting mechanism allows you to choose between general times like later today, tomorrow morning or this evening, or specific dates that you choose.

Much like a list of items that you can complete, remove or time shift until youвЂ™re ready to deal with them.

#POSTBOX FOR IPHONE ARCHIVE#

For every mail item, youвЂ™re able to move it to your archive (check it off), delete it or postpone it until later. The app is set up to take advantage of three main actions, all linked only to a Gmail account for now. This new method feels a lot more like task management than it does email management, which is no accident. All of the situations that we find ourselves in with our mobile devices that we never would have with a desktop or laptop. Mailbox takes that to its next logical step, providing you with a way to deal with email on the go. The early stages of this could be seen in Sparrow for iOS, which focused on quick actions that you can perform while mobile that allow you to winnow down your inbox without all of the standard foldering and finicky management that normally comes along with it. ItвЂ™s an app that ostensibly joins the wide array of email вЂclientsвЂ™ already available on the iPhone, but thinks about email in a significantly different way than many others that have come before it. ThatвЂ™s the general principle that guided the Mailbox project.

Postbox for iphone