Just a few weeks away from its anticipated launch, Mailbox began allowing, Wednesday, iPhone's Gmail user to take their place in line for the download. So, is it worth the wait?
Mailbox, which was announced in December prides itself on delivering a less congested, more manageable mail system for iPhone users. A series of finger swipes quickly organizes your email into categories based on importance by allowing you to either trash unwanted messages altogether or "snooze" messages for viewing on a later date, thus, ultimately bringing the user to what Mailbox refers to as "Inbox Zero".
According to Mailbox's Web site, "Mailbox makes getting to zero - and staying there - a breeze. After you experience a clean inbox, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it."
Emails can be "swiped" into categories like "Later Today", "Next Week" and "Someday", safely stowing mail that's not important to you at the moment for viewing on a later date. It even allows you to choose a specific date for the message to reappear in your inbox.
This basic approach to email does not necessarily mean that you will lose any functions or features of email that you have come to know, and possibly, love.
According to Ryan Lawler of TechCrunch.com "...email in Mailbox works pretty much the same way as in other apps. You can read emails, reply, reply to all, forward, etc."
Lawler does mention, "If there's one feature that's missing, especially for advanced Gmail users, it's probably the ability to label emails into different categories. But for me, the ease of archiving and search within the app makes labels unnecessary."
So, why do you have to get in line to achieve "Zero Inbox"? After all, we live in a fast-paced world and none of us like to wait. And that is just the problem that Mailbox is facing. The app works with email from a cloud so that people can store and recover their mail as quickly as possible. The Mailbox team admits, however, that such high speed service can only handle a certain workload to ensure accuracy and efficiency. If everyone downloaded and began using the app on the launch date, the system would most likely go into overload.
"The IMAP protocol is nearly 30 years old and a part of reinventing the inbox is building a secure, modern API that's better suited for mobile devices," explains the Mailbox Reservation page. Once you have registered your telephone number, Mailbox will send you a reservation number, which you will be required to enter when the app becomes available. Until then, it's a waiting game.
As of right now, Mailbox is free, but upgrades will be available in the future, allowing users to pay for extra features and services.
Although reviews seem to be in favor of Mailbox, only the release date and time will reveal the success of application.
