At the end of last year the blogosphere got all excited about Mailbox, an upcoming iPhone app that promises to reinvent the way you do email. Developed by Orchestra, the app is finally coming in a few weeks, and it will be totally free. Demand has been so huge that everyone won’t be able to use Mailbox the day it launches in the App Store; you’ll need to activate it separately.
When you are finally able to download Mailbox in the App Store, a message will show you how many people are in front of you in line. A code will be texted to your iPhone’s phone number that gives you access to start using the app. It may seem unnecessary, but the folks at Orchestra are trying to guarantee that their servers stay up and running as more and more users jump on. Mailbox’s servers compress incoming emails so they arrive faster than normal on your iPhone.
“We can’t wait to put Mailbox in the hands of everyone who wants to use it in the coming weeks. But we need to be careful about how we do that because this is email and email has to be reliable. Mailbox depends on servers in the cloud in order to deliver email as fast as possible to the phone, support push notifications, and facilitate email snoozing. While we’ve designed our system to handle lots of users, we want to be careful not to add everyone at the same time.”
Mailbox will be available as a free download, but Orchestra eventually plans to introduce premium upgrades with in-app purchases. The app only works with Gmail accounts now, so maybe the developers will charge for adding additional accounts in the future.
Cult of Mac’s John Brownlee has been using Mailbox for awhile now, and he seems to love it. Expect a full, in-depth walkthrough tomorrow.
Make sure to get your spot reserved on the Mailbox website!
Source: Mailbox
