Software : First look: Mailbox for Mac

First look: Mailbox for Mac
Adobe Elements 13 introduces new features for novice Photoshop users
Microsoft's answer to Chromecast is a less attractive, more expensive dongle
In Depth: Salesforce: 'Brands must focus on planning, personalization and optimization'

Posted:

As someone who emails regularly, having a working email client is essential. Over the years I have tried multiple mail clients, from Sparrow on Mac, through a myriad on Windows 8 to Yahoo's mail app on Android.

All have offered solid experiences – the ability to reply, search, place into a folder, and so forth – but none have offered the ability to properly categorise email messages based on one important factor: time.

Time is of the essence

An email assignment from TechRadar may need to be dealt with in a week, by which time the message has disappeared fifty emails down my inbox and requires searching to find, or in the worst case scenario, has been deleted.

An email from a friend received during a working day may need to be replied to in the evening, by which time I have forgotten and have moved onto other matters.

Promotional emails from online stores offering discounts need to be brought back after payday, by which time they have been mercilessly buried. Luckily, Mailbox provides a solution.

First appearing on the iPhone, Mailbox offered an easy way to dismiss emails and have them return at a later date. By swiping one way or another on an email, a message could be hidden until an hour's time, a day's time, a week's time and so on, upon which point it would return to the top of the inbox ready for action.

mailbox for mac sign-in

Dropbox backing

Mailbox, the company, was then snapped up by Dropbox for around $100 million (around £61 million, AU$113 million), offering greater resources but keeping the service separate. Under Dropbox's ownership, Mailbox expanded to include an iPad client, and now, a Mac client which is currently in beta.

The actual visual experience with the Mac software is incredibly close to the Windows 8 mail app, with a clean white interface and sliding effects when anything happens. Unlike the mail app on OS X, which can appear cluttered and busy, Mailbox always looks serene even when emails are pouring in.

When you first sign in – Mailbox only supports iCloud or Google emails, with Yahoo mail support being removed due to a technical issue – all of your emails appear instantly. Sent items synced to the cloud (I signed in with my iCloud email account) swiftly and correctly, as did deleted and archived items.

As I mentioned, the app is still in beta, and has all of the associated instabilities, including refusing to write a new message on multiple occasions. These issues will likely be ironed out in the final release and can be solved by deleting and then reinstalling the app (a process I undertook several times).

Zero priority

Recently, there has been a large movement towards "inbox zero", the idea that people who use email heavily want to reduce their unread email count to zero. Mailbox helps with this goal greatly.

By filing emails away, the number of emails that are left unread reduces rapidly. In the past, I've left emails unread in order to find them again quickly. This solution is far from perfect and is negated by Mailbox.

Now, I simply tell Mailbox to remind me of the email in a few days when I am ready to act upon it. Workflow-wise, Mailbox quickly becomes an essential element and you'll actively start noticing yourself chiding other email apps for not including Mailbox-like features.

To actually get hold of the app, a "beta coin" must be used. Signing up for a beta coin on the Mailbox website took about three or four days to generate one, but a quick search of Twitter offered more results with people actively giving away unused beta coins. The system is novel and prevents novice users from downloading and using Mailbox in its current state.

When I asked Mailbox about their final plans to roll out the service, they said the app would be paid but wouldn't specify how much a single license would cost.

Currently Mailbox integrates rather loosely with Dropbox, with images and files attached to emails in Mailbox being hosted by Dropbox and not much else. Dropbox's infrastructure is likely supporting Mailbox, however – or likely will be soon. Mailbox said in July 2013 that the service was "processing" over 60 million emails a day, a number that could only have gone up.

On launch, Mailbox had to ask customers to wait before gaining access to the service. With Dropbox behind it, this is unlikely to happen again.

mailbox for mac

Security is paramount

As a company that is becoming increasingly involved in enterprise, and the security concerns that follow, Dropbox will have the infrastructure and talent in place to deal with any security risks associated with Mailbox's rather unorthodox way of dealing with email.

Unlike a regular mail client, which simply serves emails off the server of whichever provider is being used – be it Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. – Mailbox processes all the emails that it delivers to its various clients on its own servers.

Anyone who gained access to the Mailbox servers would then have access to millions upon millions of emails, an unappealing idea especially to the technology-savvy customers who are likely to download Mailbox.

Mailbox offers a new take on email; a view that includes "inbox zero", an idea adopted predominantly by journalists and those who work with heavy amounts of email.

The idea is, essentially, to reduce the total volume of unread, or un-acted-upon, emails in your inbox to zero. Mailbox's time-based categorisation tools allow this, leading some to call it the "inbox zero client".

For most users, however, just being able to file emails away for a later date will be the primary function of Mailbox, and this it does very well.

Adobe Elements 13 introduces new features for novice Photoshop users

Posted:

Adobe has introduced a new version of its consumer-level photo editing software: Adobe Photoshop Elements 13, which includes a variety of new features designed to appeal to the beginner user.

As before, the new software draws on aspects Adobe's full Photoshop suite but has three different modes that offer Quick, Guided and Expert editing functionality.

In the Quick mode there are simple editing functions, such as crop, while the Guide mode walks you through series of steps to produce different looks. The Expert mode is similar in many ways to the full Photoshop software and includes access to editing tools such as Levels.

For the latest version Adobe has added new effects, there are now 50 different ones to choose from, including Black and White, Cross Process and Toy Camera.

Adobe's research indicates that the most popular editing task most users carry out is cropping an image for better composition, and it's with this in mind that the company has introduced its new Crop Suggestion tool. This analyses an image and looks for faces, horizon lines and so on, and applies rules of classic composition, with several at its disposal. You can also override/revert any changes that the tool makes.

Inspiration

A new section of the program called Elements Live draws together inspiration, tips and tutorials from around the web. There's also still the Elements Organiser to help you maintain an overview of your image collection.

Other new features include a new slideshow tool and a way to make a Facebook profile and cover photo match up – you can then upload the cropped images directly to the social network.

Adobe has also added a 64-bit version with high DPI support for Windows and Retina display support for Mac, making the most of high resolution screens.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 will be priced at $99, and is also available in a bundle with Premiere Elements video editing software for $149. If you already own any previous version of the software, you can upgrade for $79.

Microsoft's answer to Chromecast is a less attractive, more expensive dongle

Posted:

It's easier and cheaper than ever to beam content from desktops, laptops or mobile devices to an HDTV, which is what makes Microsoft's new entry into the space something of a head-scratcher.

Microsoft announced pre-order availability for the clumsily named Wireless Display Adapter, which appears to be Redmond's take on Chromecast. It is, however, limited to Miracast-enabled devices such as Windows 8.1 PCs and tablets.

Priced at $59.95 (about UK£37, AU$68), the dongle is nearly twice the cost of Google's own solution, and a tad more cumbersome, thanks to a longer, more squarish design with a built-in USB cable protruding from the opposite end.

On the plus side, the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter isn't limited to compatible apps, and can be used to either mirror a device screen or even extend it onto any HDMI-equipped display.

Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter

Android friendly

One unique feature of the Wireless Display Adapter is its ability to project the screen from a Windows Phone 8.1 device such as the Nokia Lumia 1520 to the big screen, although Microsoft pointed out that the dongle wasn't limited to just one platform.

Although Apple's iOS devices are left out of the party, Miracast-supported Android devices can also get in on the action, great for catching up on favorite TV shows while at a hotel room or checking out photos from the family vacation while you're still on it.

With the higher price tag, Microsoft appears to be focusing sales of the Wireless Display Adapter to enterprise customers, although the dongle will be offered at Best Buy retail locations in addition to the Microsoft website or brick-and-mortar stores.

The Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter is now available online from the Microsoft Store or BestBuy.com, and is expected to become "generally available" in October.

Take in our exhaustive review of the Nokia Lumia 530 smartphone!

In Depth: Salesforce: 'Brands must focus on planning, personalization and optimization'

Posted:

TechRadar Pro sat down with Kyle Lacy, Senior Manager of Content Marketing & Research for Salesforce ExactTarget, to discuss the company's new Journey Builder for Apps tool and why he thinks it can simplify the task of the IT department and improve customer service, sales and marketing.

TechRadar Pro: This morning, Salesforce and ExactTarget introduced Journey Builder for Apps. What can Journey Builder clients expect to receive from this addition to the tool?

Kyle Lacy: As Marc [Benioff] said during his keynote: The billion connected devices [in the world] equals a trillion connections. For apps it is about mobilizing every company. Every company is an app, every company is a software company, every company is a digital company. Journey Builder for apps is just one part of that. For example: Stanley Black and Decker has completely mobilized a lot of their hand and power tools. By using Journey Builder, they are able to connect every different channel in one system.

TRP: It's incredibly important that enterprise tech companies capitalize on the Internet of Things. Salesforce in particular has done a good job of taking esoteric concepts and making them sound practical. Why is that important?

KL: The practical part of it is the human behind all of these devices. The Internet of Things breeds an Internet of Customers. We're personalizing a lot of this information. It makes it relevant for all of our brands. When a device is connected to a human being it's about the data shooting back for the brand to become more personalized. When we're using that data effectively we're being seamless [and providing seamless experiences]. Stanley Black and Decker says "Helping is the new selling." When you look at the customer journey, customer service, sales and marketing, they are really all in one.

TRP: How does Journey Builder, and more specifically Journey Builder for Apps, simplify the life of an IT professional that's tasked to work with marketing to build out these kinds of campaign tools?

KL: As Marc said earlier, you can literally run a business from your phone. We're doing business at the speed of light. If you're riding in a car, you have to do your business from your phone. For example: Trunk Club provides me with a stylist, takes information from me and sends me a box of clothes to look good because I can't dress myself [laughs]. I can order a trunk from my phone and my stylist can set up my trunk from her mobile app, all while we're not sitting together in the same room.

TRP: How does Journey Builder help the CRM planning process, which is so crucial to the roots of Salesforce?

KL: The whole idea of Journey Builder is PPO: planning, personalizing and optimizing. As you manage all these customer journeys, whether it's 50 customers or 100 million customers, you can plan, personalize, deliver and optimize via those analytics. The marketing cloud adds to that. A full suite of products that deliver every single experience: email, mobile, social, web. We're the number one CRM platform in the world, we can use that data more effectively to feed that information.

TRP: What's next for Journey Builder? What can we expect from the tool in the future?

KL: Mobile is where our focus will be. Once you have the ability to deliver that seamless experience it's about planning. Whether it's about geo-fencing, email, push personalization, it's about managing that entire process. It's about building out innovation behind that idea.

Which are the 10 CRM systems you should know?

Yahuui Blog

Wednesday, September 24, 2014