It’s a sign of how dissatisfied people are with their smartphone’s email client that people are queuing up in large numbers to try a new mail app. At the time of writing, there were nearly 800,000 people waiting for a chance to try Mailbox, a new Gmail client for iOS.
Mailbox is a simple, free email app created by Orchestra, and it’s getting rave reviews. It’s faster than the Gmail app, and cleaner looking than Apple Mail, but what makes Mailbox noteworthy is its use of Gmail’s label and archiving functions. In fact, if you use Gmail without archiving, all the hype around Mailbox might seem unnecessary.
Mailbox is all about getting to “Inbox Zero” — a method of organizing your email in such a way that you are extremely productive and fast in how you address tasks, requests and projects. It uses simple gestures to quickly sort your mail into archive, or to save it for later. If you’ve ever wanted to be a power-user, Mailbox is for you.
On the other hand, if you don’t archive, or if you already have good habits about labeling and sorting, the hype around Mailbox might be blown out of proportion.
Either way, that long queue of would-be users is drawing a lot of attention.
