Spark Mail Client goes subscription

$60/year. 30% lifetime discount for existing users which is fair I guess if you are inclined to pay $42/year for an email client.

I waffled back and forth between Spark and Airmail for a long time,but their features just never matched enough of what Airmail could do for $10/year to be taken seriously.

Subscriptions are out of control. I canceled another one yesterday and the timing of this one may be the worst ever.

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Looks like free tier is still there and now available on Windows.

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you have to pay to get rid of the “Sent with Spark” spam at the bottom of your emails. That right there is enough reason to delete the app.

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oh that is rough! I get charging for teams/business but for personal use just let people use it as they were.

I am also not the biggest fan of the new design. Perhaps I haven’t explored the settings enough, but having to leave the email list to view message contents is not exactly great. The lack of a persistent sidebar is another inconvenience.

I recently hopped over to Fastmail, and the move prompted me to move my 3 accounts into Apple’s Mail app. I know, I know, hear me out.

While Fastmail has an iOS app of its own, I didn’t love the design. I find the always-present checkboxes to be a distraction, and with a little effort, the stock mail app functions perfectly for me. I have my personal account set to show notifications and a badge count, while my two work accounts only alert me when a VIP sends an email. Again, I know you can set this same kind of functionality up in other apps (like Outlook), but I find it too busy and buggy.

I guess I got out of Spark at a good time as I am also pairing down subs wherever possible.

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I would think most businesses use Outlook or Mail.app, or a browser. It looks like subscriptions or advertising is the future. If the rumors are true we’ll be seeing targeted ads in Apple’s built in apps before long.

This “rumors” are around for more than a decade, and normally sparked by “sources” that rather tend to be Google and/or Amazonfriendly.
I think the main reason for those “rumors” are, that Google and Amazon (and maybe some other Companies within this Area) don’t like, that Apple is a Competitioner with a totally different, and way more user-friendly business model.

I hope you are correct.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg

It looks like they’ve created an additional new product with new features and updates and are charging a subscription for that? Here is a blog post about it. Very curious if the old version is going to continue and if so in what form.

The new features look cool and seem to integrate some other apps’ best practices.

I’m a Spark user now, and a supporter of developers doing what’s best for them to build a sustainable business. I’ll have to consider if this makes sense for me going forward. I haven’t tried other email apps in years, might be a good time to explore!

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This is only regarding the App Store, not regarding “targeted ads in Apple’s built in apps”!

Yeah, this is straight from the blog post:

The previous version of Spark for Mac is still available in the Mac App Store and can be used simultaneously with the new version.

The new design looks interesting. I’m not sure I’m interested (it doesn’t look like a very Mac-y app from the screenshots on their site), but I’ll be curious to hear more about this from the usual suspects at MacStories et al.

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Thanks @snelly, for catching that. I admit that I jumped right to the features. :man_facepalming:

Also interested in what the reviews are.

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Looks like integrations are missing in the new desktop app unless I’m missing something - Things, Bear, Evernote, etc. I like the philosophy of the new inbox but it’s throwing off my work flow. Previously I would process emails by replying, creating a task in Things, creating a reference in Evernote or deleting. It was a pretty quick way to process the inbox.

in addition to giving spark money, you give it double the resources now.

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I found that hard to believe, but it’s really true:

I briefly installed Spark to see what’s new, but they still don’t support Fastmail identities, so I removed it minutes after installing it.

Back to the Fastmail App…

Looks like another app going the Electron way :wink:

Weirdly, the deal breaker for me is the (seemingly?) Electron base. I should have clued in when I opened it the first time and the animations seemed slightly less smooth. I should have clued in when they announced Windows support.

I have no problem paying a subscription fee for email, because it’s so close to my workflow and if it makes my life even marginally better than a subscription is a small price to pay. I’ve previously had no problem paying $30/month for Superhuman. However, since I dedicated myself for the year to only use native apps wherever possible, I’ve really just… enjoyed using my devices more.

So this will be the end of the road for me and Spark, and I’m probably back to Mail.app, not due to the subscription, but due to the tech. Makes me sad. Spark has been great.

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did you remember to delete your info from their server?

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Like I said, rumors, but it sounds to me like Apple is seriously considering doing more. From the Bloomberg article (edited):

“Several months ago, Apple’s advertising teams gained a foothold within the company’s services organization. The ad group’s vice president in charge, Todd Teresi, started to again report directly to services chief Eddy Cue instead of deputy services head Peter Stern. . . . . Inside the ads group, Teresi has talked up expanding the business significantly. It’s generating about $4 billion in revenue annually, and he wants to increase that to the double digits. That means Apple needs to crank up its efforts.

I believe that the iPhone maker will eventually expand search ads to Maps. It also will likely add them to digital storefronts like Apple Books and Apple Podcasts. That being said, I don’t anticipate Apple going back into the business of serving up ads inside of third-party apps—at least not soon. Apple tried and failed at that with iAd starting in 2010.

The effort to add search ads to Apple Maps has already been explored internally. Such a feature would probably work similarly to search ads in the App Store. For instance, a Japanese restaurant could pay money to rank at the top of local listings when users searched for “sushi.” If you’ve used Yelp, you already get the idea. In the books and podcast apps, publishers could pay for their work to appear higher in results—or in ads placed throughout the apps.”