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Windows 8 Mail Leaves Users Pining For the Desktop — or Even Their Phones
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."
people still use email clients!?
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
I only use online mail these days, so do all of my coworkers and all of the coworkers at my previous companies too. I guess there is still a niche for this called the public sector.
They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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.
it's behind Microsoft's own phone platform
Isn't Windows 8 Microsoft's own phone platform?
Personally, I'm pining for the fjords. Just saying. You know, as one dead parrot to another.
I'm sure, the large majority will put up even with that. But maybe MSFT will be using some spare change and license Opera.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
I see what you did there.
Windows 8 mail might make me pine for Pine also.
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.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
That prerelease software isn't finished yet? No fucking way! I'm shocked!
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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The general public don't use desktop mail clients...
They use webmail.
Geeks use desktop mail clients, and geeks can install their own. I'm surprisedMicrosoft even included a mail client really.
They could of took the opportunity to say don't like your Windows mail client, switch to Thunderbird.
It's obviously been designed for use with Microsoft services and less as a generic mail app. Most people use web based email clients anyway. Desktop email clients seem like an unnecessary complexity nowadays.
I'm sure google will have their own mail tile.
Everyone else? Well, Thunderbird may still have some life in it yet..
The only reason people look at Microsoft is to use the desktop software and GUI's they know like the back of their hand. MS is NOT going to be able to compete on technology alone because they are behind that curve. If they can't give you a mobile version that works like the MS desktop and Office, they are hosed.
Table-ized A.I.
Developer: Almost done, another day or so!
PM: Great!
Developer: Oh shit, it's going to be another 3 weeks
At least the tablet will ship with something resembling an email app. Some tablets didn't. Can you believe it?!
There might be a lesson to be learnt. Look what happens to companies that don't ship basic apps with their tablet.
I don't think it's the version going to be included in gold, is it? Besides, who gives a fuck?
It's a god damn Microsoft mail client, if you're at that level, you probably don't need much more than "hurr press button it sends email".
Who cares about the Windows mail program? Just use gmail, and forget about that shit.
With even Microsoft's own Outlook trying to migrate to online/cloud/browser-based solutions, who even cares about stand-alone email clients at this point? This program isn't intended for much more than checking your AOL email; even my POP-only ISP email account has more/better functionality through the web interface.
Don't forget that Vista's mail client was deprecated practically from day one, and 7 didn't even ship with an email client.
Whelp, there goes a big toe...
I've been using the Windows 8 mail client instead of outlook on my MacBook Air with my exchange email for a few weeks and mostly like it. It reads mail/sends mail, is bloody fast, never hangs or slows down. That being said 1) it's a beta product 2) it does have the option to provide feedback to Microsoft within the app It is short on some features, I await final release to pass final judgement.
Sadly, a joke needs explaining isn't funny. Still:
https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developers-public/2011-October/007647.html
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm
The "Pets" section has some crazy parrot stuff followed by an "Email" section with... well, read it for yourself.
Now, someone mod the parent up ! It's lvl 9000 Obscurity !!!
A free e-mail client from a for profit company doesn't support every feature that users could want?! Why does everybody think they should get first class quality software for free these days?
Doesn't support IMAP? Whaaaaaa? How in the hell can they forget that?
Designer: "Hey boss! We finished the new model of sedan for next week's unveiling!"
Boss: "Great! Show me!"
Designer: "It's got a great interior, class leading power, even cheaper than the competition! And the milage? It's great!"
Boss: "That's awesome news! Hey, where's the steering wheel?"
Designer: "Steering wheel? Wait, the car's supposed to turn?"
Boss: "...uh, yeah. They all do that. And kind of need to."
Designer: "...crap! I knew we forgot something!"
who ships a smart phone without MMS support and is praised as an "innovator".
They are still supporting it they just killed the dev team who were adding features that added a little bloat* but failed to increase market-share as TB is still not outlook.
What do you need in a mail client seriously? It has more features than pretty much everything else excluding the exchange stuff.
I am not the only one who has noticed it.
Basically you do not need METRO at all to experience. Go open IE and then do fullscreen at www.hotmail.com and that is it. It is not even an app more than a container. The news app sucks on Metro as well but not quite as badly.
It really is bare knuckles with fullscreen IE 10 instances. iOS got it right with its version of apps having toolbars, tabs, and other features. The safari for my dad's ipad is identical to the desktop version except for a few menu items.
http://saveie6.com/
Reality Check - however much we may love our various e-mail tools (I'm a g-mail man myself, 'cause it works well with my Linux box and my Android phone) Joe Average user is in a different camp.
They don't want to change e-mail clients every year or two. I'd love to know how many Outlook Express installs are still out there. For many, many people it has been Good Enough for - ten years? Especially for the millions still using Windows XP.
I recently moved my Girlfriend from OE to Windows Live Mail (that is, the desktop version of Windows Live E-mail, not the web version) and have to say that it was not an easy transition. After that experience I'd think long and hard before moving to another MS client.
(Always found Outlook more irritating than useful, but that's my taste. Fondly remember Pegasus Mail when it was the pinnacle of e-mail clients.)
Three Squirrels
So the other coward is suggesting that Microsoft is selling Win8 in the same manner a pet store owner will sell a dead bird ? And it's all somehow tied down to the ravings of our ( \. ) favourite programmer \ loon ?
You see, this is how you ruin a joke...
It's Dead.
... Did Microsoft ever get around to fixing the "begin xxxx.xxx.scr/exe/whatever" bug in their basic email client?
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
I've use mail.app for compatability and Thunderbird as a secondary client.
1) The encryption stuff should not be such a pain. It should be on and self configure by default.
2) Task manager integrated into calendaring. Preferably allowing for task assignment. If you really want to push workflow (i.e. john should be able to read this hit approve and the email forwards to Suzie automatically with John's approval).
3) Digital signing
4) Labeling / tagging, integrated with gmail for gmail IMAP.
5) Twitter, evernote, linkedin... feeds and uploads
6) Link large files i.e. large files get replaced with links off a webdav and/or dropbox.
7) automatic multiple RE: Fwd reductions
etc..
It says "APP PREVIEW"
What a stupid article.
What do you need in a mail client seriously? It has more features than pretty much everything else excluding the exchange stuff.
These, for starters:
Palm trees and 8
It only lets you set up accounts for Exchange, Hotmail and Gmail right now, but it definitely does support IMAP. If you add a Gmail account to it and then disable POP retrieval it still works. Disable IMAP and it suddenly doesn't. I imagine they will add the option for arbitrary servers before it gets released, but even if they don't it will satisfy 98% of the people that use it (those without Outlook and who don't know what Thunderbird is).
This comes on the heels of Ballmer saying that Microsoft will no longer allow Apple to out innovate them? A mail client that doesn't even support IMAP? Apple's Mail application isn't the best but at least you can connect to Exchange servers and connect to Gmail over SSL. So do any number of Linux based mail systems. I like having a desktop client to cobble together my gmail, yahoo and corporate mail all in the one box. I suspect that a lot of others do too. They have to get this fixed. I want MS to succeed, I really do, but it's gaffes like this that have Windows ME and Vista written all over it. Although we should all know better by now. MS has a history of unfulfilled promises when it comes to operating systems so it should come as no surprise. I think Metro can work on a tablet. I've seen it on phones and it looks pretty cool. But for the desktop? I've got grave reservations and without even a proper email client it's dead in the water as far as I'm concerned.
Exchange support.
I haven't even seen Metro, and I've heard nothing but complaints about it.
Metro sounds like a... wait for it... train wreck.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Win8 makes ME, Vista, Clippy, Bob and even GFWL seem like well-thought-out good ideas in comparison.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That everything will of course be in the cloud-social media collective. They have determined you don't want or need a functioning email client. And the scales will fall from the eyes of the usual fanbois and cheerleaders who suddenly gush with the paid for epiphany that Redmond was right all along and a new paradigm of computing is upon us.
yo only a fag wud use sum gay shit liek mac when u culd use a real pro operting system like windows metro!!!111
Windows 1.xx-2.xx - Crap ....
Windows 3.11 Good
Windows 95 - Crap
Windows 98 - good
windows ME - Crap
Windows XP Good
Windows Vista Crap
Windows 7 Good
Windows 8
No I dont count NT and 2000 in there because those are Professional OS's and they both rocked.. 2000 Was better than 98 by a long shit because of the security and pro features. Problem is Windows 8 is a consumer home OS not a Professional OS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Previously windows users either had to buy Outlook or go download something else like Thunderbird or whatever.
No, Outlook Express doesn't count...
MS just cant seem to get it through their heads that they need to provide a complete experience that is solid.
They are scared to because they think everyone will file a lawsuit against them. Its why Media player sucks, why an email program doesnt ship with windows 7... and why windows 8 will fail if MS keeps doing this to themselves.
Newsflash: Windows 7 didnt even come with an email client.
Two things. First, give postbox a try. I'm using the old 2.5 version but I really like it (commercial tbird fork). It does most of that list (suspiciously so...maybe we're both undercover postbox employees).
Second, why do so many people want a calendar in their mail client? Communication between different a calendar and a mail app I understand for things like invites. However, if you want the enterprise level features that come with Exchange/Outlook, just use them.
I am correct.
So you people really think they are going to release the OS without a decent mail Client/App or some 3rd party replacement in place? And I thought my dog was stupid...
Desktop email clients seem like an unnecessary complexity nowadays.
For vanishingly small levels of complexity.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's why Apple gave Office to Microsoft.
Maybe Microsoft is adapting the old "First they laugh at you" strategy. Say Windows 8 fails or fails to succeed on the scale of 7. But by the time 9 comes out, people would have been so used to The Metro interface that they'll just sigh and accept it for what it is, a dumbed down desktop UI for the smartphone generation.
Win7 didn't introduce any great UI changes from Vista. Win9 is likely going to be an enhanced version of 8.
Windows 8 mail leaves users Pining
I see what you did there.
'Nough said 'Dano.
Oooops!
Did M$ remember to install ipconfig and all support files!!!!!!!!!!!
Balmer ... that bastard! They ... did not!
What a riot!
Oh well. W8 will be the Vista of the 'London' Whales for sure.
M$ and Balmer will loose butt loads on this catastrophe.
But that is on par for M$.
PS. Billy G (William Beatrix) is the Abortion Poster Boy that Malinda G. could not bring to herself to speak, Cough Cough Fizz Fizz, given the amount of his money $$$$$$$ she has squandered over the years for insanity causes, name in person.
What a Circus!
LoL
MS has embedded its security software in Win 8. Will Semantec, McAfee and free Antivirus software makers sue MS?
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I almost never check mail on my laptop anymore. The mail apps that come bundled with Windows Phone 7 are so quick, reliable and easy to use that I use them exclusively. I still write lengthy emails on my laptop, though.
Wow, people still use these?
How quaint!
Release via an update later. Microsoft needs to learn, first impressions count.
This is precisely why I have been migrating all my XP clients using Outlook Express to Thunderbird when they upgraded to new Vista or Windows 7 systems. It was clear to me Microsoft was going to begin changing their mail app with each OS release (ie, it went to Windows Mail, then Windows Live Mail, and now whatever awful monstrocity this is) making it hard for users to adapt, and difficult for me to migrate messages, contacts, and settings. Thunderbird solves all of these issues.
Most of Microsoft applications on Windows 8 are in preview mode, and not complete. So better to wait than making such post.
See subject
Microsoft has always been single minded about what they do. The original act was that they expected all the files you would deal with would be in their formats. All the products they provide should be all you need to do everything. I spent an incredible amount of time getting software elsewhere to do what I needed to do, and more time keeping them working every time a new Windows version or update came out.
Now, their ideal to to make a "one OS to rule them all". Seriously, trying to shoehorn Windows and complementary software into a hardware platform it was never designed to do. Sounds as horrible as Ubuntu's Unity. They have gotten like Sears in that they are trying to be the everything store that does nothing well.
They don't get the idea that if they attach the name "Windows" to the operating system on a tablet, people will expect that tablet to operate with the same power as a desktop. It isn't going to happen. At least Apple was smart enough to make sure their customers understood that an Ipad was a completely separate product from their other products.
As a side note, portable computing is currently using less processing power, memory, and storage than non-portable. The trend in innovation it toward less power consumption, smaller devices, and new user interfaces. I wonder where Moore's Law plays into that?
Your suggestion about postbox is a good one. And you are right. About halfway through writing that list I decided to grab a list from an existing rich mail client and picked postbox. :)
Second, why do so many people want a calendar in their mail client? Communication between different a calendar and a mail app I understand for things like invites. However, if you want the enterprise level features that come with Exchange/Outlook, just use them.
Outlook for Windows is a terrific client. The problem is it doesn't work well without exchange. I want exchange type features but with the client not the server doing the heavy lifting. The same way my client intermixes two email streams, and does invites is there any reason it can't do task management? People who don't work for large corporations still need task management and they need it on all their devices.
If MS made a good mail client that was built in to windows, then it could potentially reduce sales of outlook.. MS are very scared of competing with themselves and reducing sales of their existing products.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
No, they don't need to provide an experience, they need to provide a product. Everything you interact with provides some kind of experience. You call your car a car, not an experience. You call a restaurant a restaurant, not an experience. Why not call software software? This indirect language itself is an indicator of the problem, they sell appearances and seem to forget that an important part of a good user experience is the result of the software being functional.
it makes the rest of the PoS seem good.
It's good that it doesn't use the way that's used on the web and prompts the user when it gets a bad cert. Users are very used to accepting certificates because they get warnings all the time, but it's a problem with mail. Specifically, when connecting to wireless networks with a HTTPS "landing page", the user would give their pasword to the owner of the gateway. Email tries to connect at once when you connect to a wifi network, so it gets the wrong server.
Seriously, though... Microsoft does this all the time. Demolish competition using thug business tactics for which some people should be in jail, then once the market is good and cornered and the poor simple computer consumer has as close as possible to NO choice, start removing features to force them to pay MORE money for, once again... the same thing they've already paid for several times over (if this isn't the first computer they've bought in about 25 years).
Business leaders, computer manufacturers, take CAREFUL note of this: The makers of Linux distributions, or of Linux itself, should use the same strong-arm illegal tactics that Microsoft used for decades to build and support its software hegemony based on fear, uncertainty, doubt, and outright lies, then force you to pay through the nose for the same software over and over again, except that in each version of the software, they should take the features they included for free to damage their competitors, and start reducing their functionality to nothing. Like Microsoft does, with... case in point today, Windows 8 Mail.
BUT THEY COULDN'T DO IT. Leaders of businesses and manufacturers of computers should be smart enough to realize the implications of this fact. Because they're FOSS or FLOSS, they CANNOT keep you from doing nearly ANYTHING with their software, making the proposition of the copyright (or copyleft) holders or the maintainers pulling the same kind of CRAP that Microsoft has for decades IMPOSSIBLE.
If you have trouble understanding this, look at OpenOffice.org, as compared with LibreOffice. LibreOffice, as anyone reading slashdot probably knows, is a fork of OpenOffice.org. Without going into too much detail, the people responsible for OpenOffice.org did something that a lot of members of the community REALLY didn't like. So they took a copy of the FREELY AVAILABLE SOURCE CODE, and used it to make their own version, calling it LibreOffice, thus allowing them to do pretty much WHATEVER THEY WANTED WITH IT, adding the features THEY WANTED TO SEE THEIR OFFICE SUITE HAVE, and the OpenOffice.org people couldn't do a thing about it.
Not a good enough example? Okay, how about people taking software released under the even more liberal BSD license, and making it the core of their business? Without BSD, there'd have been NO Apple Macintosh OS-X. Apple has reaped untold benefits from the hard work of the students, researchers, professors, etc. of the University of California Berkeley Computer Science Department, (and let's not forget, AT&T's Bell Labs,) in the form of what was once called the Berkeley Software Distribution of UNIX. A descendent of this software, released under that very permissive license, became the underpinnings of their much vaunted OS-X. Even if the originators and maintainers of the various descendants of BSD (from the Regents of the University of California, to the BSD community, BSDi, the OpenBSD, NetBSD and let's not forget, FreeBSD communities and programers) didn't like or approve of what Apple did, the nature of the terms of the license made it impossible, legally, for anyone to stop them.
SO WHY IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THE FATHER, THE SON, AND YES... THE HOLY F'ING SPIRIT, IS ANYONE *** STILL *** USING _M_I_C_R_O_S_O_F_T_ SOFTWARE ? ! ?
What are these people, lazy, or just f'ing STUPID?!? Do they enjoy the abuse? Can it really be that Microsoft finds at every single turn, with Delphinian Oracle-like prescience, the exact, correct amount of money they can bilk people out of, an amount that always ends up being just short of the amount of money they can squeeze them for before other companies realize that it makes more financial sense for them to ABANDON MICROSOFT?
Or has Microsoft actually cost computer manufacturers so much that it has LONG SINCE made sense to their bottom lines to ditch Microsoft and their wretched, deliberately insecure and bug-ridden software, but they don't because they're COWARDS?
Help me understand. Apple has made a KILLING selli
People still use desktop email clients?
I guess it should be noted that for Win8 Pro (not WinRT), if the lame Metro email client doesn't work for you, you can always install Windows Live Mail on the desktop and continue to work exactly like you always did in Windows 7.
I imagine the Mail client, along with the others, will continue to get aggressive upgdates after Win8 release, via the Microsoft App Store. Since they finalized the WinRT APIs that Metro Apps use only since the "Release Preview" it doesn't really shock me that the apps are behind. But I think it's missing the point to assume that the state of the apps at release is exactly how they'll be a month or three after release... the apps can and will be updated independently, post-Win8-release.
But yeah, as it stands now, it's lame enough for me to consider it unusable and worthless. There are some, though, who ONLY have email on gmail or hotmail or exhange, who will be able to function with it.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Windows Phone 8 will be released at the same time as Windows 8, so it will no longer be behind once it is released.