I’ve made no secret of my dissatisfaction with the iPhone’s built-in mail client, which omits basic features like search that makes navigating through any sizable inbox nearly impossible. Things are going to get much better with the release of the iPhone 3.0 software update this summer, which includes some search functionality, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. ‘All My Mail‘, a new application from Attassa, is a step in the right direction. The application is comparable to a stripped down, mobile version of Xobni, and is now available on the iPhone App Store.
After scanning through your inboxes, the application analyzes your Email messages and breaks them into conversation threads, similar to those found in the Gmail web interface. It also uses the Email addresses you typically interact with to generate a comprehensive address book (it can identify when the same person uses multiple Email addresses, and groups them accordingly). Whenever you click on one of these contacts, the application presents every Email thread you’ve had with that person, as well as related contacts. There’s also a very useful feature that allows you to look only at the attachments you’ve exchanged with other contacts, which is great when you’re looking for a particular file but can’t remember when exactly someone sent it to you.
At launch the application works with Gmail and AOL webmail accounts, as well as any Outlook accounts (you have to install a special plugin). Support for more services is on the way. A free version supports a single inbox, while the premium version (which is $4.99 plus a subscription fee) allows for an unlimited number of inboxes. For you privacy buffs, Attassa says that it does not store entire copies messages on its server, but that it does store encrypted meta information and snippets about each message. The company could theoretically look at this data, so it might be unwise to use it for highly confidential information, but this is really a risk with any startup service.
Attassa is free if you’re hooking it up to one Email box, and is charging $20 per year for the service if you’d like to tie it to multiple Email accounts (the first three months are included in the application’s $4.99 sale price). That’s obviously fairly inexpensive, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay it unless I could count on All My Mail as my default mail client – and it isn’t quite there yet. For one, you can’t compose a new message (though you can reply to them), and it’s frustrating to have to switch between multiple mail programs depending on what you’re trying to do. The company says that this will change as soon as the iPhone 3.0 update is released. I’d also like to see a more comprehensive search, similar to the impressive full-text search that was just released by ReMail last week (again, Attassa says search is coming in a future update). That said, All My Mail is definitely a very welcome addition to the iPhone’s otherwise anemic mail functionality, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for its future updates.
What I want far more than search is to be able to flag emails for follow up…
yes i need that too!
http://pea.to/kc
I am surprised this application got through. why did apple approve this app in first place?
does it not infringe their ‘copy right’?
worth noting that the outlook connector only works with the premium service and there is no similar plugin for mac users
suggest waiting for 3.0 to see what that has to offer before getting your head around this
Talk about an application that’s going to be a moot point in a few months. Nice features but no email send? Come on. How about a spam filter, I’d take that over grouped conversations.
Totally agree that we need to have a ‘compose email’ feature before we’re a full email replacement. iPhone 3.0 gives us the ability to do that, and we will.
What we wanted to do here is not so much replace Apple’s mail as give full, fast access to your complete email history. Your email archive is a rich information archive that you need access to, sometimes most of all when you’re not at your computer.
Thanks for the feedback.
Good point about the Outlook connector – more than one account or using the Outlook connector requires the premium subscription.
iPhone 3.0 will indeed offer some limited search, but I think folks might want to try this anyhow. We do have full-text search (of messages and attachments) in our plans, but we think that this is a better way to find messages and documents than keyword search. We did this first ’cause we think it’s better. Give it a shot!
Very cool. A combination of an address book and email. I love the recent people feature. I am going to try it mainly for this. I have been waiting for something that will serve as a reminder of all the people I need to respond to which this does. And I like the fact that I can easily call them from this list without going and searching the address book every time.
A mail app that you can’t compose on… uh, hello. Why bother releasing half an app.
Hi, Foobar. Thanks for the input. I don’t think we’re half an app – I just don’t think we’re THAT app.
We’re about giving you fast access to your email history, letting you get to documents and messages that are months or years old with just a couple of taps. It’s a different calling than a traditional mail app.
Mail in 3.0 will have search built-in. It works great, very slick.
And what do you mean “sizable inbox”? You shouldn’t be storing messages in your Inbox – they should be immediately sorted/filed into other folders. If you don’t, you fail email. Gmail’s filters make this automatic and remove any excuses.
i think this is just what i’ve been looking for. awesome