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Mailbox for Mac reaches public beta, packs draft support, new “snooze to desktop” feature

mailbox mac

The team behind the famed Mailbox mobile application demoed a very early preview of the app for Mac back in April of this year, not long after announcing that the platform had been acquired by Dropbox. But the team has seemingly been making steady progress, hoping to create the perfect desktop counterpart to its mobile email client. Today, Mailbox announced that the app has reached public beta and that it will be rolling out soon to those who have signed up for the wait list.
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Dropbox’s Mailbox for iOS updated with new languages, support for opening Passbook, printing, more

The popular Dropbox-owned email client Mailbox received a notable update today bringing a list of new supported languages as well as additional features.

In addition to English, Mailbox is now translated into the following languages: Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (both European and Latin American), Swedish, and Thai.

The update also adds support for Apple’s Passbook platform. Previously, emails containing Passbook files would prompt an “Open in…” dialog with Mail and Dropbox supported, but the new version of Mailbox allows users to open Passbook files right in the Passbook app from the email as you would expect.

The update also includes a list of other changes including support for printing emails, viewing spam folder emails, spam filtering, adding stars to emails, using military time, and more.

Mailbox for iPhone and iPad is available for free on the App Store.

Tim Cook to employees on IBM partnership: ‘I’m really excited to see it take off’ (Memo)

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Image by @Darth

<a href="https://twitter.com/darth/status/489149634883747840/photo/1">Image by @Darth</a>

Earlier today, Apple and IBM announced an expansive, long-term partnership to integrate Apple’s iOS devices into the Enterprise with big data software powered by IBM. The partnership will allow for IBM to sell iPads and iPhones to its Enterprise customers, and the duo are also working on jointly developed software for the enterprise. The companies are also developing an enhanced AppleCare protection service for enterprise iOS device users. Following both the official announcement and a video interview discussing the plans, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent a memo to employees detailing the partnership:


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Apple begins encrypting iCloud email sent between providers

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Last month Apple confirmed that it would soon beef up encryption for iCloud email following a report detailing security flaws in major email services. While Apple previously encrypted emails sent between its own iCloud customers, now the company has enabled encryption for emails in transit between iCloud and third-party services for me.com and mac.com email addresses. 

The change is documented on Google’s transparency website that shows the percentage of emails encrypted in transit for both inbound and outbound email exchanges (pictured below):
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Researcher claims iOS 7 (including current 7.1.1) does not encrypt email attachments, Apple aware of issue

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Security researcher Andreas Kurtz has discovered that versions of iOS 7, including iOS 7.1.1 (the current release), iOS 7.1, and iOS 7.0.4 do not encrypt email attachments in the bundled Mail application. This is an issue itself, but more worrisome as iOS, according to Apple, is supposed to encrypt email attachments. Here’s a page from Apple’s website indicating that:


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Mailbox goes beyond iOS, now available on Android and coming soon to OS X

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Dropbox announced today that Mailbox, the popular gesture-heavy email client it bought last year, will soon be launching a desktop version of its software.

The company also announced a set of new features like Dropbox account sign in and syncing and delete automation coming soon to the iPhone and iPad versions that will debut first in a version available for Android; this marks the first time the email software will be available on another platform aside from iOS as Mailbox is available on the Google Play Store today.

Users interested in using the beta version of Mailbox for OS X (screenshot preview below), which is said to be very minimal and rely on the trackpad for gesture-based interactions, can sign up on Mailbox’s website to learn more about the upcoming beta.
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New Steve Jobs email a treasure trove of information about Apple TV, Google ‘holy war,’ and behind-the-scenes strategy

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A new email from Steve Jobs that was published during today’s Samsung lawsuit (via The Verge) has revealed a lot about Apple’s plans for its products in 2011 and beyond. As we’ve previously noted, Jobs referred to 2011 as a year of “holy war” against Google, but this document goes above that and describes how exactly Apple planned to wage this war.

A few choice bits are below, followed by the complete email.


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Gmail bug means iOS users may have accidentally deleted mail, says Google

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A Gmail bug affecting the iOS app, mobile browsers and the offline version of Gmail may have resulted in users deleting or spam-marking the wrong emails, says Google.

The bug may have affected emails received between 15th and 22nd January. Google is encouraging users to check their spam and trash folders for email that does not belong there.

Via The Verge

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Review: Inbox Cube changes email by highlighting attachments and contacts

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Inbox Cube is a new innovative app that allows the user to easily navigate and find their emails and quick respond to them. It does this by separating your email into three different “cubes”: Emails, Attachments,  and Contacts. Inbox Cube supports Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo!, AOL, and other generic IMAP accounts. It allows multiple email accounts which you are able to view separately.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/79432766]

The Email Cube is where you’ll find your emails. The sender’s contact photo appears on the left side of the preview (or their first initial, if they don’t have a photo). A paperclip indicator tells you if the email contains attachments, how many attachments there are, and whether you starred the email for reference later.

By default the tiny preview of the message is the first two lines. If you want to preview more of your email without entering the message, pinching out will show you the first four lines of the message (or the first three lines with thumbnails of some of the attachments). Swiping to the right initiates the “action cube,” giving you one-tap options for forwarding, replying, adding stars to messages, marking mail as read, moving, and deleting.

The Attachment Cube allows you to view all of your attachments, both sent and received. It provides a visual preview of each attachment and allows you to quickly go back to the email that contained it. There are also different views for separating out the different types of attachments such as photos, videos and documents.

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The last cube, Contacts Cube organizes email by contact. It groups all of any correspondence to or from a specific contact together. This makes finding emails from certain people very efficient. This process is much quicker than searching your inbox for that contact and waiting for the search results to load.

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Inbox Cube promises to deliver great features, but falls short in many areas, not the least of which is the number of bugs. Right away using it on my iPhone 4S going through the tutorial it was easily noticeable that parts of the interface were chopped off due to the smaller screen size. This also happened on occasion in the Attachments Cube and Contacts Cube, where you cannot scroll all the way down to see everything at the bottom.

Most of bugs lie in the Attachments Cube. Sometimes a few of the previews fail to load, while other times they all show up blank. At times the app says you have no attachments at all, even when this is clearly not the case.

The content in the Contacts Cube doesn’t always match up with the device’s built-in address book. For example, Contacts Cube easily allows you to add a photo to the contact, but that photo will not appear in the vCard in the Contacts app. If you use VIPs in the Mail app, or Favorites in the Contacts app those will not transfer over to favorites in Inbox Cube. It would be nice if either VIPs or Favorites would sync across the two different services. Also there is not a way to merge Contacts into one, which could be beneficial if one of your contacts has multiple email accounts. In the Contacts Cube it would be useful if there was an indicator denoting if you have a new email from your contact, as opposed to searching your inbox to see if anything important came.

Despite the quirks and bugs, with future updates, Inbox Cube can become a very efficient and powerful email client. It makes navigating through the cultter of your inbox easy and efficient by showing you only the things you need. Inbox Cube is available for free in the App Store.

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CloudMagic brings cloud-powered email search to the iPhone

A brand-new mail client called CloudMagic launched today on the App Store. The app supports most email services and has all of the basic features you’d expect from a mail app. One CloudMagic feature blows most other apps away, though: search.

Rather than searching on your phone for a certain email and then remotely searching each individual mail account to find what you’re looking for, CloudMagic caches your entire mail account on their server and uses server-side search to find any message almost instantly. The search is powerful and intelligently suggests words and phrases that I found to be exactly what I was looking for.


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In company-wide email, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauds awe-inspiring work of employees, gives Thanksgiving week off

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Following the launch of two new iPhone models and iOS 7 earlier this month, Tim Cook today emailed Apple employees thanking them for working tirelessly on the new products and rewarding them with extra, paid time off for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.

I realize many of you worked tirelessly to bring us this far. I know it required great personal sacrifice…In recognition of your incredible efforts and achievements, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday this year.

Cook announced that Apple will shut down on November 25, 26, and 27 so employees can have the entire week off for the holiday. Retail and AppleCare employees will continue to work on those days to serve customers, but they’ll get the additional, paid time off at a later date along with international employees.

And I am proud to tell you that Apple is also a force for good in our world beyond our products. Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making a substantial contribution to society.

None of this would have been possible without you. Our most important resource is not our money, our intellectual property, or any capital asset. Our most important resource — our soul — is our people.

In addition to announcing the additional time off, Cook noted that he visited Apple retail stores during the launch of the iPhone, and also thanked employees for the “substantial contributions” Apple has made to charitable causes.

Cook’s full letter to employees is below:
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Apple says developer website will go offline for ‘brief scheduled maintenance’ August 17 at 6 PM

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Apple has informed developers via email that the Developer Website will be offline beginning August 17th at 6PM PST for “brief scheduled maintenance.”

In the past, Apple has not informed developers about upcoming brief maintenance periods, but perhaps Apple is being more transparent in light of the recent hacking attempt and extended downtime for the developer programs.

Apple has also recently launched a website for users to monitor the available of Apple developer services.


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Preview of Analog Camera for iPhone by Realmac Software

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Analog Camera for iPhone by Realmac Software

Analog Camera for iPhone by <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=jZ6GP8Fu9UU&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=3909&RD_PARM1=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fnl%2Fartist%2Frealmac-software%2Fid310591643%3Fl%3Den" target="_blank">Realmac Software</a>

From the wonderful folks who brought you Clear for iPhone and Mac, Realmac Software announced today it will bring a few of its stunning filters from Analog for Mac to the iPhone with Analog Camera.

Analog Camera for iPhone resembles the simplistic, gesture based UI of Clear for iPhone, featuring soft square or rectangle buttons that pop up upon contact and prompt fun, clever sounds.

Check out my observations of the app and a teaser video below:
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Mailbox email app for iPhone removes reservation system following scaling improvements

The Mailbox for iPhone email application no longer has a reservation system, its developers announced today. The developers say that improved scaling contributed to this.

Good news! Mailbox is now available without having to wait in line. After 10 weeks of around-the-clock hard work, our engineering team has scaled the Mailbox service to deliver over 100 million messages per day (and growing). We believe we can now confidently handle new users as they sign up, so we’ve pulled down the reservation system.

It is unclear if Dropbox, the new owner of Mailbox, contributed to the new scaling efforts. The developers say that the app processes 100 million emails per day. Yesterday, Mailbox was updated with interface enhancements and new snooze options.


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Unofficial Apple ‘union’ leader leaves the company tomorrow

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Photo: Josh Lowensohn/CNET

Photo: Josh Lowensohn/CNET

Cory Moll, an Apple retail employee who founded an unofficial union for Apple Store staff, is leaving the company tomorrow, having apparently resigned.

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Moll founded the ‘Apple Workers Union’ as a Facebook page and now-defunct website, describing it as “a movement of empowerment to bring change and improvement of working conditions to Apple’s retail stores” in response to what some employees felt to be low pay and limited opportunity for advancement.

Moll tweeted earlier today  that tomorrow would be his final day. In an email to 9to5Mac and others, he said:
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Tim Cook congratulates employees on another record quarter, to hold Town Hall Q&A

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Tim-Cook-07Following reporting what CEO Tim Cook referred to as another record-setting quarter, today the Apple executive sent out an email to employees congratulating the team. Within the email, Cook thanked employees for their “incredible hard work and focus” and highlighted that the company sold over 75 million iOS devices during the quarter.

Like last year, when Apple held a Town Hall meeting following its Q1 results near a windshield repair Sugar Land TX company, Cook is asking employees to attend an employee communications meeting scheduled for today at 10 a.m. Pacific time. The email sent out last night following Apple’s earnings results conference call, and it noted that employees would be able to submit questions via AppleWeb in advance.

Apple will also broadcast the meeting live throughout Cupertino and other Apple locations. Cook’s full email is below:


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Small number of users report total iCloud email loss, Apple working on the problem (Update: Apple acknowledges)

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A discussion thread on Apple’s support forum appeared last night from a user who claimed all of his iCloud content disappeared without warning. A further glimpse at the following comments revealed the same situation occurred for a number of iCloud users.

One commenter, npascual, said an Apple support representative “acknowledged last night’s outage,” and then suggested the user “turn off all iCloud-related services on my iPad (Mail, Contacts, Calendars, etc.), wait a bit then turn them back on.”  The representative apparently indicated “everything would return after a short period of re-synching.” However, npascual noted it had been a few hours since the call without any repair.

Check out the full thread here.

9to5Mac reached out to Apple on this matter, and we will update when more is known.

UPDATE: Well, Apple is owning up to the problem, according to its System Status page, but the company is neglecting to give an explanation as to what is happening.

More thread comments are below.


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Tim Cook convinces AT&T to unlock customer’s iPhone

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We get many emails on Apple’s customer support experience. While not always positive, some are excellent examples of Apple going beyond the average company. Today, a reader and trusted tipster reached out to us and explained that a personal email to Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, who is known to keep up Steve Job’s long-time tradition of answering customer emails, resulted in AT&T making a “special one-time exception” to fulfill a request it previously refused.

The reader was reassigned to Canada for work and decided he wanted to use his iPhone 3GS (which was on AT&T at the time, but has since finished its contract) on a Canadian carrier’s pay-as-you-go plan. AT&T refused to unlock the device, insisting only Apple could. Apple suggested the reader call AT&T again, because only the carrier could authorize the unlock. When he did, the only advice the reader received was to “Just jailbreak your phone.” We heard reports of many similar situations and both the carriers and Apple often give inconsistent information related to unlocking iPhones, which result in confusion among consumers. Frustrated, the reader sent an email to Cook asking him for help (full email below).

While the reader never received a personal response from Cook, he did receive a response from AT&T Partnership Operations that informed him it received his email from Cook requesting to unlock the iPhone. 9to5Mac confirmed the emails are authentic. After AT&T confirmed the IMEI’s for the device, an AT&T representative told the reader that the carrier made an exception to unlock the iPhone. The reader was given instructions to tether his iPhone to iTunes to complete the unlock. According to the reader, he also received a call from Cook’s assistant to make sure AT&T followed through with the request:


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Fluent is a Sparrow-like UI for Gmail making the ‘future of email’

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Fluent is a web-based workflow stream that works with existing Gmail accounts to bring a Sparrow-like user interface to email.

Users can stream email threads and replies, preview aggregated attachments in a tab, quickly reply or compose inline, archive messages, and even add a to-do list with the new design concept that claims to run on any web browser.

Sparrow is a great success as a Mac-only application, and now Fluent hopes to balance the playing field and snag users whom are in dire need of a new Gmail look and functionality. Fluent’s website specifically praises its workflow ability, multiple accounts options, and “blazing” fast search-as-you-type filter.

The streaming email UI is the work of three former Googlers who quit the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company. BusinessInsider said Cameron Adams, Dhanji Prasanna, and Jochen Bekmann left because designers were “less valuable” than engineers at Google, and they felt disconnected from Google’s culture while operating from across the world in Sydney, Australia…


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