Mail

iCloud Mail is currently experiencing service issues. The conflict has been impacting users for more than an hour and is currently ongoing according to Apple’s system status page. “Users may experience slower than normal response when using iCloud mail,” Apple’s description of the service disruption says.

It appears Apple’s App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store also experienced down time with customers not being able to make purchases, but Apple’s system status page says that outage was resolved after just over an hour. The iCloud Mail issue, however, is ongoing. (Update: Resolved as expected.)

Is apple mail down for other people or just me?

— John Hodgman (@hodgman) July 24, 2014

Nope, it’s not just you, John Hodgman, but we do miss your ads.

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Apple has released iOS 7.1.2 to end users today over-the-air with the following changes:

• Improves iBeacon connectivity and stability
• Fixes a bug with data transfer for some 3rd party accessories, including bar code scanners
• Corrects an issue with data protection class of Mail attachments

The update is available over-the-air or via iTunes for the latest iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. The fix for Mail addresses a well-publicized security problem regarding attachments. Apple has also released OS X 10.9.4 with various bug fixes and security enhancements.

The build number is 11D257 and it comes in at approximately 30 MB over-the-air on the iPad and 32 MB on the iPhone. The update is approximately 1.4GB for a complete download via iTunes.

In addition, Apple has released Apple TV software version 6.2 (build number 11D257c) without any major changes. The update addresses stability and performance issues:

• Includes general performance and stability improvements.

Download links below:

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Earlier today Apple announced the next version of its iOS software, iOS 8, during the WWDC keynote today. Below you’ll find a gallery of all the new bells and whistles in the latest operating system. If you’ve got some screenshots you’d like to send us, you can send them to tips@9to5mac.com.

The new software includes features like iOS-to-Mac continuity, quick-reply for first- and third-party apps, a new predictive text keyboard, changes to the Mail app, HealthKit framework and Health app, Family Sharing features, new Photos cloud storage, an updated iCloud pricing scheme, new commands for Siri, App Store changes including beta distribution, a Touch ID API, third-party keyboards, new iCloud management and development features, a home automation framework, and even support for a brand new programming language.

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Apple announced iOS 8 today during its Worldwide Developer Conference, including several new features for its default Mail client. Among those new features were new gestures for quickly handling messages by swiping. Swiping from left to right allows you to mark a message as unread, while swiping right-to-left presents options for deleting or archive messages and more.

The app also now intelligently detects invitations and other potential calendar events and presents a banner at the top of the message that offers to create that event auotmatically. New features have been added to the compose screen as well, allowing users to swipe down on a draft to quickly dismiss it, access their other mail, and return to the draft with a few taps.

It’s safe to say that Mail in OS X Mavericks has been the new operating system’s least impressive point. Since launch, users have been complaining about issues relating to Gmail accounts, stability, and overall synchronization. Apple first attempted to patch up these bugs with a fix in early November of last year…

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Goodbyes are always hard, and today LinkedIn is saying farewell to its Intro service. The product released last fall by the social network that used questionable methods to connect its contact data with the native Mail app for iPhone is shutting down next month, the company announced today.

First impressions are always important, of course, and LinkedIn was met with a rough introduction to its service. The product wasn’t exactly an App Store app and used unfamiliar methods to tie in LinkedIn contact data to iOS Mail. LinkedIn says users will need to manually remove the functionality from their devices before March 7th for email to resume working correctly. Check below for the full announcement as well as instructions for removing LinkedIn Intro…
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Since OS X Maverick’s launch last year, there have been complaints from users of the official Mac Mail app with Gmail accounts. Apple has fixed up many of the bugs in various patches, but one of the still recurring bugs prevents the Mail app from loading up new messages.

Instead of releasing another patch today, Apple has outlined a fix on its support website:

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Preventing unwanted messages from showing up in your inbox can be integral to enjoying email. In this article we will walk you through the process of creating mail rules that will direct messages to other folders or the trash based on conditions you specify. We will also discuss how to update rules to include additional senders or other criteria, and provide some common-sense guidance about effectively using mail rules in general.

Mail rules allow you to direct messages out of your inbox into another folder or trash automatically, based on their sender or other conditions. Rules can be set up on iCloud.com if the email address is the one you use for iCloud (it can end in either @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com).

For your other email addresses, rules can be set up in the Mail app on a Mac. If you set up rules using iCloud.com they are very effective, immediately directing messages to the specified folders on all your devices. If you set up rules using the Mail app, they are effective only after you start up your Mac and open the Mail app.  At the end of this article, I will make some practical suggestions about how to address that, and other aspects of using mail rules.

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9to5Mac readers know a thing or two. When I reviewed Postbox, after explaining that I had lost patience with the flakiness of late of Apple Mail, several of the commentators recommended Airmail, a lightweight email client based on the popular but discontinued Sparrow app. It’s also the only alternative to Apple Mail and (of course) Outlook for those who need Exchange support.

Since then, Apple released OS X 10.9.1 with Mail fixes. It’s definitely better, but those unread mail counts still don’t update promptly, and my jury is still out (to put it nicely) on Gmail integration and other issues. As I mentioned before, so long as you use IMAP, switching back-and-forth between email apps is trivial, so I decided to give Airmail a try …

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You would think a high profile app written by Apple specifically for OS X and supplied with every Mac sold would be as close to flawless as you can get. Sadly, this has not been the experience many of us have had with Apple Mail for quite some time – especially Gmail users.

While Apple Mail seems to have continued to work well for those with simple needs – a single email account, no filtering into folders – power users have experienced a whole succession of problems that Apple seems unable to fix.

Unread mail counts that take an age to update, deleted emails that reappear next time you click into an account, moves to folders that undo themselves, undo actions that don’t work and – most annoyingly of all – a mail list pane that remains blank when you switch account, sometimes for seconds, sometimes even for minutes at a time.

I finally lost patience with it and decided to look around at alternatives. I’d used Thunderbird before, so that was high on my list, and some googling pointed me to Postbox, an email client which uses Thunderbird as its engine but layers a prettier user-interface on top … 
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In early November, we reported that Apple had begun seeding versions of OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 and 10.9.2 to employees within the its Software Engineering division. Since then, Apple provided two OS X 10.9.1 seeds to registered developers. These builds focus on improvements to Mail, Voice Over, and general system stability. The update will serve as the first point-update to the recently released OS X Mavericks.

Now, we’ve learned that Apple has provided build 13B40 of 10.9.1 to AppleCare employees. This internal release indicates that the public release of OS X 10.9.1 is near as Apple’s support staff will become familiar with the software in order to seemingly assist customers in the near-future. That particular build is the same version provided to developers last night. OS X 10.9.2 will likely follow with additional fixes in the following weeks.

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Today, Apple has provided the first seed of the upcoming OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 to registered developers. We previously reported that Apple had seeded the 10.9.1 update to its employees along with a future 10.9.2 release. It’s currently unclear when those operating systems will reach the Macs of customers. Apple asks developers to focus on Mail, Graphics Drivers, and VoiceOver in their testing. Apple previously seeded an update to customers to fix Mavericks Mail problems. The 10.9.1 seed is labeled as build 13B27.

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Apple has seeded two software upgrades for OS X Mavericks internally, according to a source with knowledge of the upcoming updates. This person says that the updates are labeled as OS X 10.9.1 and OS X 10.9.2. The first update is expected to be released later this month, and it will serve as an update to squash bugs that accompanied the OS X 10.9.0 release of Mavericks last month. Many users have complained about issues relating to the Mail and iBooks applications, and Apple is preparing to release individual bug-fix updates for those apps in the coming days…

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Since the launch of OS X Mavericks last week, many users have been reporting widespread, various, consistent issues within Apple’s bundled Mail application.

Many of the issues have mainly affected users of Google’s Gmail email service, and some of the issues have to do with receiving messages, sorting messages into folders, and deleting messages.

Apple is aware of the issue and is testing a fix for the problem…

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Yahoo Mail is officially 16 years old today and to celebrate the company announced on its blog that it is rolling out an entirely new Mail experience on iOS as well as on the desktop and Android. A popular feature of many other mail clients, Yahoo Mail now includes the ability to view email threads as conversations:

We’re introducing “conversations” for those who prefer to view emails grouped in threads. At the end of the day, being able to see an entire conversation can save you quite a bit of time. Context is king.

Perhaps the most notable addition, however, is the features previously only available to Mail Plus customers. That includes a free 1TB of storage for all users:
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Setting up your email in iOS 7 is just like setting it up in earlier versions of iOS. Just like before, you are able to have Gmail set up in the Mail app. To set up your email you would go to Settings, then tap on Mail, Contacts & Calendars, and then press Add Account. By default in iOS, Gmail is set to archive your emails as opposed to deleting them. Archiving email keeps the messages in an Archived folder, but Deleting moves them to the trash.

If you are viewing your inbox, and you swipe from right to left on the message, you do not get the option to delete the message. Rather, you get an Archive option or a More option. The More option gives you every other option except for deleting the message. You could always tap on More, then press Move Message, and then choose the Trash folder. That’s rather tedious for a simple task:

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