• Sparrow Acquired By Google

    by
    Anthony Bouchard
    Published on 2012-07-20 07:05 PM
    20 Comments Comments


    Sparrow has been widely regarded as one of the best e-mail clients both for iOS and Mac OS X alike. The application has replaced the stock applications on both devices – mobile and desktop – for tons of e-mail users that use Apple’s devices. The application is popular because of its slick looks, great interface, and zippy speeds. Just last month, the iOS application received support for POP e-mail accounts and it was promised that we would see push notifications as a yearly subscription service.

    Unfortunately, Sparrow has now been acquired by Google – a move that means Sparow will no longer be adding features to their applications for iOS and Mac since they are moving on to bigger and better goals with Google and Gmail. The announcement was made by Sparrow's CEO, Dom Leca, via Sparrow's blog:

    Originally Posted by Sparrow
    We're excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!

    We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.

    Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.

    We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application. While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.

    We had an amazing ride and can't thank you enough.

    Full speed ahead!

    Dom Leca
    CEO
    Sparrow
    While the applications for iOS and Mac will not be receiving any new features, the company promises to still offer support for the existing applications and to still keep them around for the users to enjoy in their current state. It's unfortunate that we won't be seeing any new features to the applications because both push notifications as well as a native iPad client have been promised to users and will likely be disturbed by this decision.

    It’s unknown exactly what the, “bigger vision” that Sparrow refers to in the blog is supposed to be, but it will be interesting to find out as they begin working with Google and time goes by. It is likely that some big surprises are going to be brought to the Android operating system and iOS will be left out of the fun.

    As a buyer of Sparrow myself, I am pretty disappointed that I won't get to look forward to new features in the iOS application. Be sure to let us know how you feel about it.

    Sources: Sparrow Blog
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Sparrow Acquired By Google started by Anthony Bouchard View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. iPhone,
    3. iOS,
    4. OS X,
    5. Mac,
    6. AppStore,
    7. iPad,
    8. Software
    Comments 20 Comments
    1. 2k1's Avatar
      2k1 - 2012-07-20, 07:09 PM
      Very upset. Guess time to go back toggle old one
    1. Anonymous's Avatar
      Anonymous - 2012-07-20, 07:15 PM
      Google even ruined the logo
    1. Silverado1987's Avatar
      Silverado1987 - 2012-07-20, 07:24 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Anonymous View Post
      Google even ruined the logo
      Yeah the logo is very unattractive
    1. funkydog's Avatar
      funkydog - 2012-07-20, 07:28 PM
      Crap! Looks like I've just wasted some hard-earned cash on an app that's going to be extinct on my iPhone.
    1. 2k1's Avatar
      2k1 - 2012-07-20, 07:40 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by funkydog View Post
      Crap! Looks like I've just wasted some hard-earned cash on an app that's going to be extinct on my iPhone.
      Ya been having it since they came out Was looking forward to this but this one is done
    1. evolution83's Avatar
      evolution83 - 2012-07-20, 07:53 PM
      Good thing I held out for something I knew wouldn't happen. The stock mail app is fine, but Apple needs to add more features and make it stand out so it's not such a 'basic' client.
    1. Wiiman20's Avatar
      Wiiman20 - 2012-07-20, 07:54 PM
      DAMN IT GOOGLE STOP BUYING EVERYTHING THAT PEOPLE LIKE!!! Geez...
    1. Xx_Illusions_xX's Avatar
      Xx_Illusions_xX - 2012-07-20, 08:06 PM
      The only app from google I use is google chrome for ios and also use it on my desktop. Im nervous if they will make the app a Google Mail app only. Another reason why I dislike Google is because you need to have a Google email account to make a YouTube.
    1. bigboyz's Avatar
      bigboyz - 2012-07-20, 08:12 PM
      I really wish Apple would buy the stuff we like..it always gets sold to the competition, so the competition can stay relevant. Guess if you can't beat them, buy a company that is utilized by them.
    1. Zokunei's Avatar
      Zokunei - 2012-07-20, 08:57 PM
      I thought it was pretty obvious that the "bigger vision" was improvements to gmail.

      Quote Originally Posted by bigboyz View Post
      I really wish Apple would buy the stuff we like..it always gets sold to the competition, so the competition can stay relevant. Guess if you can't beat them, buy a company that is utilized by them.
      Well they did buy Siri.
    1. subywrex's Avatar
      subywrex - 2012-07-20, 09:28 PM
      Another app that has made rich people..lol can only imagine the price of witch they acquired sparrow for
    1. trek-life's Avatar
      trek-life - 2012-07-20, 10:03 PM
      That really sucks.
    1. Painkiller006's Avatar
      Painkiller006 - 2012-07-20, 10:31 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Xx_Illusions_xX View Post
      Another reason why I dislike Google is because you need to have a Google email account to make a YouTube.
      You do know Google owns YouTube right?
    1. MacProClub's Avatar
      MacProClub - 2012-07-20, 10:54 PM
      I kinda like the new logo
      I never got it as I wanted to save my credits for mountain lion, and I'm fine with the stock app anyway
    1. PoEtikly's Avatar
      PoEtikly - 2012-07-20, 11:25 PM
      Yeah I'm disappointed as well. I really wanted to see the push capabilities come to light. I'm sure there will be somebody on here, if they haven't already, say sparrow +/push but it doesn't work correctly. The only time I get banners or badges is after I manually open the app, it doesn't auto refresh like the iOS mail client to make me aware that I have new messages. I remember during the last version of sparrow the push would work (with the tweak), but maybe it's because sparrow was updated for POP and +/push hasn't been updated to work fully with the new version. I really don't know. Maybe it's a conflict with other tweaks I have installed. Either way it sucks because I really liked sparrow (especially when I had push working).
    1. PoEtikly's Avatar
      PoEtikly - 2012-07-21, 03:51 AM
      <snip>

      WOW! On Anthony's behalf you're truly ignorant! You need to reread BOTH articles because first they said that THEY WILL NOT BE ADDING ANY NEW FEATURES TO SPARROW!!!!! but will maintain the service they currently have. What Anthony reported was absolutely correct. [...]
    1. Painkiller006's Avatar
      Painkiller006 - 2012-07-21, 05:41 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by PoEtikly View Post
      WOW! On Anthony's behalf you're truly ignorant! You need to reread BOTH articles because first they said that THEY WILL NOT BE ADDING ANY NEW FEATURES TO SPARROW!!!!! but will maintain the service they currently have. What Anthony reported was absolutely correct. [...]

      PS. Your parents must not have payed much for your education
      You need to read the announcement again because they never said they will not be adding any new features to Sparrow, Anthony just assumes they wont be adding any features because it's now acquired by Google. All Sparrow said was "While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users." In no way did they said, we wont be adding any new features because we have been acquired by Google.

      PS. Your not as cool as you think for bashing a user who bashes on other users.
    1. purplemonkeyspank's Avatar
      purplemonkeyspank - 2012-07-21, 06:59 AM
      Whatever.
    1. Anthony Bouchard's Avatar
      Anthony Bouchard - 2012-07-21, 07:13 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Painkiller006 View Post
      You need to read the announcement again because they never said they will not be adding any new features to Sparrow, Anthony just assumes they wont be adding any features because it's now acquired by Google. All Sparrow said was "While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users." In no way did they said, we wont be adding any new features because we have been acquired by Google.

      PS. Your not as cool as you think for bashing a user who bashes on other users.
      Actually, he is correct. Sparrow e-mailed the user base alerting them that they will not be adding new features to the existing applications. All they will do is offer support to existing customers as is and update it to rid it of bugs if need be.

      Quote Originally Posted by Sparrow View Post
      We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps.
    1. Painkiller006's Avatar
      Painkiller006 - 2012-07-21, 07:56 AM
      Ah, I wasn't aware of the e-mail they sent to the users. Thanks for clarifying Anthony.

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