Why Mailplane?


I really love Gmail. It is superior to Outlook and MS Exchange I experience at work: The Outlook Webclient is a joke, I get more spam than normal messages and server space is so limited I constantly must delete messages. But Google Mail beats .mac and OSX Mail.app, too: Mail.app has no conversations, an inferior search, stores everything locally and simply feels less productive than Gmail. With Gmail I can search, read and compose my message from everywhere: Home, Work, Mac, Linux, Windows and even my handset.

What about IMAP support? Using Gmail thru Mail.app isn't Gmail anymore - I simply missed all unique features that make Gmail so great.

But I missed quite a few features that Mail.app and other traditional mail clients offer. Gmail with its browser interface just didn't reach my desktop. For example uploading an attachment involved too many steps: Exporting the image from iPhoto, somehow resizing the picture and then attaching it by using the "Choose file" button.

Nearly two years ago, on vacation on the beautiful Island of Corsica, I started to write an iPhoto plugin that was able to automate all manual steps needed to attach a picture to a Gmail message. A few weeks later I gave it to my friends. From their needs and ideas grew Mailplane: A full fledged mail client for Google Mail and Mac OS X.

A desktop app for a webapp?


More and more useful applications are web applications. With some good reasons:

  • They can be accessed from everywhere. More and more people use several computers at once, e.g. work, home, internet cafe, etc.
  • Collaboration is built in.
  • Updates are performed centrally, no need to install new desktop releases.
  • Data is stored on the server, which is often much more secure than doing it locally.
  • Mac users can use webapps, too! In the old days most applications were for "Windows" only.

But when a webapp is confined to the browser, desktop integration is very much limited. I believe that specialized applications interfacing web applications are needed to make them useful and accessible. iTunes is such an application. Connecting the Music Store to your music library and iPod. iTunes in Safari or Firefox wouldn't cut it, would it?

Why is it called Mailplane?


I liked the word, the beauty and power of airplanes and the history behind these specialized aircrafts. It was about time they could fly again. This time on your Mac. "More info":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_plane.