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Dropbox, why are you ruining Mailbox?

47 points by mohamedattahri ↗ HN
Can we get someone from Dropbox/Mailbox to explain what is happening with the desktop application?

First development stopped for several months, then an ugly and buggy version was released, then the design was reverted back to the original one, but all the bugs and instability remained there. On El Captain, the application is just not usable, and the OS has been available for developers for almost 6 months now.

The apps may be free, but I think they owe their users an explanation. They've been very vocal on Facebook, by email, on the support forums, etc. Dropbox/Mailbox have remained silent. Their last Facebook post date back to June, and their last blog post to April.

I love Mailbox on the iPhone and the iPad, but it's useless if I can't use all the great features it offers on my desktop.

21 comments

[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 68.0 ms ] thread
ducuboy
Oh I didn't even know they had a desktop app.

I'm using Mailbox exclusively on iPhone/iPad so your post title got me worried, you could be more precise ;)

mohamedattahri
Development has been very slow on the mobile front as well. When was the latest major feature addition?
gadders
I wish Mailbox would work on my Samsung Galaxy S6. It worked on my old HTC One, but now it constantly crashes. I've tried Boomerang, but it's too flakey.
pavornyoh
Quite the dramatic title, if you ask me:). Had me worried also and quickly clicking to see what happened as I like mailbox.
cmadan
Serious question - apart from a desktop app and support for emails other than Gmail, is there any difference between Inbox and Mailbox?
mohamedattahri
Quite frankly - speed. Mailbox on the mobile is just blazing fast.
fgimenez
My problem with Inbox is that it doesn't let you easily delete emails. It's 2 or 3 actions to delete, which is unreasonable with high mail volume. The Google party line is that you should never have to delete, but I don't care to have old quora digests in my archive when I'm searching for actual relevant mail.

In addition, the snooze feature for Mailbox is extremely helpful.

ledbettj
I really like the concept and the mobile app is great, but I have to agree. The desktop version seems like it doesn't even get tested before it gets released. After every new version I open it up and immediately find obvious issues.

Most recently swiping an email would leaves a 'ghost' unclickable email in the inbox. Did no one test the main focus of the app? Prior to that they pushed out a release that crashed every time I opened it until I figured out how to delete my existing settings database.

Yesterday I tried to open it and it just told me "The app has been disabled" and refused to log me in.

mohamedattahri
El Captain has been out for more than a week now, and the search bar is just not working. Can you imagine an email client without search?

They also broke integration with OSX. You can't set the app as your default client, so when you click on an email address, Apple's Mail app opens instead.

Incredibly annoying.

RexRollman
It still annoys me that Apple took setting the default email and web applications out of the system preferences. That's exactly where it should go.
dtopalovic
Yes, quite unusable on El Capitan. Controls and screens don't refresh, frequent lock ups ... It's been quite a mess for while now. I switched to Airmail 2.
ianyang
I had very similar issues and I reported to Mailbox a month back. Nothing seemed to have happened so switched to Mac mail...
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edoceo
Failing Unicorn

Trade Quality for "Features"

Focus Gone, Footgun

wirddin
Here too.

I love Mailbox on my Android device, but it isn't stable on my mac. Even before El Capitan, with every update there was a bug - Once it was fixed some other bug popped up. Now, I can't even search through the emails.

Other than that, it keeps crashing.

Anyway, how do these companies take big reports? email?

cheshire137
Once Apple Mail added swiping to archive, I switched off of Mailbox. I figure Google having access to all my mail is bad enough, no reason to make an additional company privy to it, too, unless absolutely necessary. I didn't use the swiping features to remind me of mail later, I really just used the swipe-to-archive.
lacker
I would guess that Mailbox has been deprioritized at Dropbox. It doesn't seem to fit into Dropbox's strategy, now that their "app constellation" strategy isn't working, and they're focusing more on enterprise features to compete with Box.
geeio
I switched to Outlook for iOS, it seems to be updated way more frequently.

Can't wait till they release their mac client.

MrGando
They have a ver solid team ;)