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March 31, 2008

software

Outspring Mail springs into action

Posted Mar. 31, ’08, 9:20 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

Outspring MailI’ve gone through my fair share of email clients on the Mac, but it seems like it’s been a while since we’ve had a new challenger in this realm, given that a large portion of the user base seems to be on either Mail.app or Entourage. Email is, for many of us, the most important function on our computers.

Outspring Inc., makers of QuickMail, have unveiled a new product called Outspring Mail, which they’re billing as “For those who take their email seriously.” On top of supporting the standard litany of protocols like POP, SMTP, IMAP, and SSL, Outspring boasts that it uses “advanced database analysis and Bayesian logic” to observe how you use your email, with the end goal of making it easier for you. For example, if Outspring notices that you tend to get a lot of messages that are similar, to which you reply in the same way, it will offer to use one of those replies for subsequent similar messages. Likewise, with filing, it’ll learn where you put certain messages and offer simplified filing options for similar messages. There’s also a Defer feature that lets you read an email and then delay it for a certain amount of time, so it will reappear in your inbox at a later date (think of it as “snoozing” an email). On top of that, Outspring claims to have a 98% accurate spam filter, and it takes advantage of the same Data Detectors as Mail.app.

Sounds pretty cool, I have to admit. At the moment, I maintain two clients: Mail.app for my personal email, and Thunderbird for my work email. I actually loathe Thunderbird, so I plan on giving Outspring a try and see if it’s really as good as it claims. Granted, it’s a pretty hefty $95, so it’ll have to be awfully good to merit dropping that kind of cash.


6 Comments

nwmike said:

Hopefully it works better than their website. (as of 10:15am PST)

March 31, 2008 10:16 AM
Anonymous said:

Downloaded it and took a look (no screen samples on their website). I'll admit, I didn't get to set up and use it because I couldn't get past the bad GUI. The toolbar looks like amateur clip-art. That doesn't give me much faith in the software so I dumped it.

March 31, 2008 1:25 PM
Lew said:

No documentation, no help, advertising at the bottom of all outgoing email messages, can't set default account.

This puppy is not ready for prime time!

March 31, 2008 1:44 PM
Walt Author Profile Page said:

I was hoping to see some screenshots on their website. None. No documentation on their document page. Everything else had a document file to view. Not this. I doubt I would switch from Mail (as I have Entourage collecting dust) but who knows? If the screenshots were tempting enough, I would at least download the trial and give it a shot. As it stands now, I just left their site never to return.

March 31, 2008 4:06 PM
Paul H. said:

I want to comment the critical comments here regarding their Website:

Their Website is just a simple Joomla!-installation and just one of the standard templates.

Not very clever to use something very known to a lot of people, but not every company has the resources vor a high end webdesign like Apple Inc.

i can understand their motives even though I do think they should have done more and better with their website. I do find it ugly and not very good to use, but again: You can't expect every company to habe a Website like Apple Inc.

And: I can finde some screenshots, maybe they've updated their website recently?

To the critical comments regarding the Graphical User Interface:

I have to to disagree again. The GUI is not so bad. Better aks yourself if the GUI of Apples Mail.app is really that good or if it's not in fact rather bad!?!

And to the comment regarding the default account: That's the stupic concept of Apples Mail.app, but that was and that is silly.

Compaed to the best E-Mail-client in the world which is "TheBat!" by the Company Ritlabs, the usage of Apples Mail.app is completely useless, stupid, bad, etc.

Just my 2 Cents,

best regards,

Paul

April 1, 2008 9:40 AM
Walt Author Profile Page said:

They did reply to request of a screenshot and posted one. I downloaded and reviewed here: http://tinyurl.com/2yzceg

Sorry for double entry. Thought I was pasting url, but in fact hit preview or the shortcut for it?

April 2, 2008 6:20 PM

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