Sparrow acquired by Google

This is getting extremely frustrating. Sparrow is a fabulous email client both for iOS and Mac. I love and use both daily and this is fairly devastating. I was really looking forward to the products development, growth, and future releases. To read this announcement and hear that they won't be working on their apps but on <i>Google</i> projects is sad.<p>To bigger companies: chill out with the "acquihires." If anything, do what Facebook did with Instagram and keep them working on their product. It would be awesome to see the guts of Sparrow used in a Google branded Gmail client or similar (hopefully that happens, but I'm reluctant based on this statement).

Sparrow had a $4.99 (half-off) sale last weekend (<a href="https://twitter.com/lifehacker/statuses/223750237490126849" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/lifehacker/statuses/223750237490126849</a>). Borders on fraud, if you ask me - scamming people into buying what they had to have known by then they were planning on turning into abandonware a week later.

The email Sparrow is sending out, looks like there won't be any future feature additions:<p><pre><code> Hello, We're excited to let you know that Sparrow has been acquired by Google! You can view our public announcement here, but I wanted to reach out directly to make sure you were aware of the news. 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. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to build products for all of our wonderful users who have supported us over the years. We can't thank you enough. We look forward to working on some new and exciting projects at Google! Dom Leca CEO Sparrow</code></pre>

Google recently acquired QuickOffice too. So now Google owns native clients for GMail and Docs. In addition, they're continuing to build native apps for GDrive, Google Plus, and probably others.<p>This is similar to GitHub and Twitter. Both grew out of the web, but have increasingly acquired or built desktop clients, not to mention mobile ones. And Facebook has made an about-turn on HTML5 everywhere and focusing heavily on native mobile apps.<p>So I see a trend is that cloud-based services are realising they can't just rely on a website. It would be great to see the web catch up, or even close the gap, but right now, native is offering so much more capability, that both web and native apps are necessary for prominent cloud services. That's good for users, they get the best of both worlds, but also going to be a big challenge for resource-limited startups.

Great to see Google investing in email UX. Sparrow is awesome and bringing the Sparrow UX ideals to Gmail will be a big boost forward.<p>The Sparrow co-founder and CEO Dom Leca discusses Gmail in some detail here...<p>Interviewer: Why can’t Google write a mail client for the iPhone that’s worth a crap?<p>Sparrow CEO: Because they don’t really care about it. I mean, they’re not in the native app business, and all that matters with them is to have an app that is identified as the Gmail app on the iOS App Store for mainstream to use, I think. I mean, they don’t believe at all in native things, which makes sense in relation to the whole company.<p>Interviewer: Right. So they just, they don’t believe in the native thing, or, they probably could deliver it, but they just don’t want to?<p>Sparrow CEO: Oh, yeah, of course. They could deliver something I think far better than Sparrow or the application they released, but they’re just not allocating any resources to this because they think it’s irrelevant.<p>Source: <a href="http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/15/interview-dom-leca-of-sparrow-on-solving-the-iphone-mail-client-conundrum/" rel="nofollow">http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/15/interview-dom-leca-of-...</a>

1) They sold because they were a funded company and funded companies have to sell. That's how investors make money. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/09/sparrow-mac-mail-app/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/09/sparrow-mac-mail-app/</a><p>2) I highly doubt Sparrow will work with upcoming iOS versions, which means the people that bought it recently have been ripped off.

Congratulations but...<p>Argh, I love Sparrow. Why couldn't you do the 37 Signals/Panic/Mail Chimp thing and not sell and just be a nice profitable company that provides some consistency - ohwell.

First Thunderbird then this, what's a native-email-app user to do?<p>I wonder what ever happened to that Letters email app for OS X that people were wanting to build? There was a flurry of activity and complaints about Mail.app and then nothing.

Wow that sucks. What a classic example of an acquisition killing a great product. I use Sparrow for mail on mac and iphone and like many other sparrow users have mentioned, this really pissed me off.<p>What pissed me off even more was the way sparrow announced it like it was some kind of great accomplishment, maybe for their own wallets but not at all for users.<p>"Full speed ahead!" - What the hell does that mean? They just killed the entire project. More like full speed to nowhere if you ask me.

I can't wait unti they bring all of Google's UI/UX power to Sparrow. I'm sick of being able to get to my unread email so quickly.

Full text of the announcement:<p><pre><code> 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</code></pre>

Once again, kids: recurring revenue models. It appears to be the only way to build sustainable, quality software these days.<p>I love, <i>love</i> thick clients (even though I'm an ambivelent web guy) but every time I see an app as a one-time $10 or even $99 shot, I think: how are they gonna survive in the long run?

<i>While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.</i><p>Here's hoping that that means my Sparrow app isn't going anywhere...

Sparrow and Tweetie's acquisition are kind of a slap in the face of the argument for making paid and self-sustaining products that don't rely on a exit event to be in the black. Both were widely-successful paid products, and yet they both managed to get acquired by a mega-company that manages to destroy the product.

Just sent the following e-mail to them:<p>I just recently purchased Sparrow for iPhone a few days ago, regardless of the lack of push, since I knew I'd be supporting a small team with developing an awesome app. I was particularly excited for the promise of push notifications coming in the future (I was going to be more than happy to pay for a subscription service). So now that this Google acquisition has occurred, you've said that you are no longer going to be working on features for Sparrow. Does this include previously promised features, such as push?<p>If so, it seems like you've slapped me in the face with a huge middle finger. I paid for both of your applications in hopes of a future of growth for what was already an awesome e-mail client, and now you're telling me that you're killing development? That's a really shitty way to treat your customers if you ask me.

Ugh. Say hi to Aardvark (and Dodgeball, and Jaiku) for me.

Apple Mail sure did miss me. It's welcoming me back with 40% CPU usage.

There are some companies that, when acquired in similar circumstances, you are not sad to see subsumed into a larger entity. Either their product wasn't that revolutionary, they didn't have a good strategy, whatever.<p>However, Sparrow does not fall into that category.<p>I think it is a massive mistake to sell like this. They clearly had the product and following (IMHO) to become something massive. Selling early when you are just getting started seems silly to me.<p>I'm sad that I won't have the continuing evolution of their fantastic product to look forward to.

Is it possible that with this and quickoffice that Google is actively trying to degrade the iOS app market? It's one of the major hurdles that Android has never really gotten over.

I would assume this means that Google is going to push even more focus on native app development on the iOS and Mac Platforms. I imagine this was just a talent acquisition.

Damn, it was nice knowing you Sparrow. I seriously hope they don't let Google's UI/UX designers anywhere near Sparrow.

Anyone here noticed the 'API vs "Platform"' issue again? Sparrow is essentially for gmail which means it will become eternally linked to it. And depending on the owner of gmail, either blow (like in PUFF) or become a part of it (instagram is still alive because it has not been bought YET factually).<p>Looks like in this case Sparrow is going the way of the Dodo.

This must have been Sparrow's game plan from day one, so kudos to them. Hopefully it'll become the official Gmail app for iOS, get push support, and we can all enjoy the benefits.

Happy for the Sparrow folks, not so happy for my fellow users and me. I am using it since the beta and they kept promising from that version on that they would add the one missing feature for me (and a dozen of other users): undo support. I stopped using Sparrow for this only reason; then at 1.6 I started using it again; just to see where it was at; lovely UI but one CPU hogging little app. Sad to see these show-stoppers will now never be picked up in the future Sparrow. Who will be the new kid on the block?

I wish Apple acquired them.<p>iOS Mail needs those gestures more than Google does.

My first reaction was - oh fuck. Am I alone.

It sounds like the Sparrow guys ran out of money and were bailed out by Google. This is a sad outcome, but not unexpected: plenty of people make "good enough" mail clients and give them away for free. Just because you want a gold-plated email client doesn't mean many other people are willing to pay for it, and monetizing an email client is very difficult without massive scale, and advertising.

Wow. Hopefully this will give Gmail the kick in the pants it needs ... the interface really hasn't changed that much since the early days.<p>(Well, of course it's been prettified a bit, but besides a few things like Priority Inbox there have been scant few changes to the interaction. And I always liked that using Sparrow <i>felt</i> different to using the Gmail web interface.)

This is a huge accomplishment for the Sparrow team. Now lets hope Google doesn't do what they do best and ruin this beautiful app.

I wonder what would have happened if the Sparrow team would come out and say "guys we're going to close we don't have enough money". Would all the guys who are yelling "I feel betrayed" support Sparrow with a $10/month recurring plan?<p>I doubt it.<p>I personally think that Sparrow had a chance to sell their business and capitalize on all of the hard work they done so far, let's not forget that this is their business and not a hobby. They need a end game.<p>I won't try to go into details as this is probably all speculation, but monetizing a client in a saturated market with bigger competitors isn't easy. I can understand that many of you 'invested' $5-$10 in sparrow and think you're entitled to free support and lifetime slavery but let's chill a bit.<p>So you've lost $10, big deal. I'm sure you guys have invested more money into more lousy software and haven't say a god damn thing.<p>Sparrow team, good luck, great work, happy to hear that another indie developer made it. Hope to hear more success stories in the future.

Gee, people, let's chill out for a bit. There's so much anger here that I think my eyebrows were scorched by all the comments. If the previous comments are any indication, you might not want to read my comment if this email client means the world to you. I'm afraid to say that I really don't see the big deal.<p>Let me repeat that: it's an <i>email client</i>. People's days were ruined by this news? Google is stupid and evil and-I-don't-know-what-else because they acquired Sparrow? The developers of Sparrow are evil because they didn't do what you unreasonably expected them to do? You people need a serious reality check if these were your thoughts. Heck, the app <i>didn't even stop working</i>.<p>Now, with all that being said, I can understand a little frustration about knowing for certain that your apparently-favorite app will not be updated anymore. Fine. I get it. But can we cut out approximately 90% of the fury?

While I certainly understand the frustration being felt (I purchased the app and was hoping for push notifications), I'm sure most people here would've accepted the offer. With all that's been written on how little developers are making on the App and Mac Stores, I highly doubt they were making enough to sustain a team of 5. I'm assuming they're an ambitious group and selling an email app would just have not provided them with the capital and resources to achieve what they want. So they perfect their app and then what? You've pretty much hit the end of that road.<p>Sparrow was up against the native OSX/iOS mail clients, the GMail native and web apps, with the App/Mac Stores as their main distribution channels, which make it nigh impossible to get your app any visibility save the smash hits.<p>All that considered, it makes perfect sense, to me, why they'd accept a Google offer.

And thus, my dream of finally getting a Sparrow native client for iPad is crushed, like bug.<p>Who wants to build a really super good Gmail client for iPad? Both Google's web-based version as well as their native app are pretty feature-light, and slow, so it seems like there's definitely a market there.

Ah, just bought Sparrow for iOS. Expecting it to go freeware shortly.<p>edit: Ah, and they're not going to be adding any new features.<p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparrow-mail" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparro...</a>

Conflicted. I'm happy for the guys who worked hard and clearly got what they wanted out of this deal, but as a loyal Sparrow user, I feel some sense of betrayal that they're simply going to abandon their products beyond security updates.

I read the news in my Sparrow client, then immediately closed it, and uninstalled it.

I want a refund.

"Sparrow doesn’t owe you anything. You paid, you got software. They can sell and/or kill it if they want. No right to complain. Sad, true."<p>The callousness of this argument annoys me. Hey there, smug twitterer! The universe doesn't owe you anything! If your mother dies of a sudden brain aneurysm tomorrow, you also have no right to complain! Would you welcome me telling you so?<p>Yes dear, I know. Dead mothers sounds a lot like Godwinism. Whatever. The point remains that the original comment lacks empathy, reason and relevance. It's just a dick being a dick, dickishly.

This is acquisition is simple: if people stop using their web interface, they don't make money on ads.<p>They will either drop the app, incorporate AdWords on it, or integrate with Google Plus instead of Facebook.

Congrats on building a fabulous software product then commercializing (abandoning) it. I'm excited for my stale future ahead. I only hope the team was well compensated in this acquisition.<p>- selfish consumer

This makes me sad as a user, but it seems to be the trend that smaller companies that make great products get acquired by big companies for talent, and those great products disappear.

What makes this worse is they've been offering a discounted price this past week for their apps. Seems wrong to take money from new users days before your about to stop development.

Lot of talk here about their lack of recurring revenue models; the interesting thing I think is that they were developing a recurring revenue facet.<p>If you missed it, the problem on iOS is that they couldn't get push email support working (they tried to use the VOIP exception but Apple caught it while review), so the talk was that they would offer a yearly subscription type thing that would somehow enable push email.<p>I'm not sure how much that would have been, but I would have almost certainly subscribed.

<a href="http://boingboing.net/2012/07/20/how-to-prepare-for-googles-a.html" rel="nofollow">http://boingboing.net/2012/07/20/how-to-prepare-for-googles-...</a>

From their message "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."<p>I wonder if that means that they're going to work on plus. What else would Google think of as a bigger vision for how people communicate?

Ok, now that sparrow is dead....any good alternatives?

This reminds me of Yahoo's purchase of Konfabulator.

How lucrative is the email client market? Could the makers of Sparrow have survived for a while? I would think that a lot of people are already satisfied with Mail or a web client, and if someone bought a copy of Sparrow they wouldn't be buying another copy for a while. I'm surprised that there are multiple companies out there selling Mac email clients.

A shame. Sparrow was one of the few players still innovating in desktop email clients, especially now that Thunderbird has been similarly abandoned. They had already brought us custom smtp aliases, which I really came to rely on, and cloud app attachments. Who knows how far the boundaries could've been pushed with another year of independent operation.

I love how everyone here is complaining but if 90% of you were in that position you probably would have taken the offer.

Maybe there is a small chance a window client might shows up in the pipeline :)<p>Anyway, there is a mail client (that began as a project of midori's author) that looks a little bit like sparrow: <a href="http://redmine.yorba.org/projects/geary/wiki" rel="nofollow">http://redmine.yorba.org/projects/geary/wiki</a><p>It's very early in its dev. stage though.

For those looking for a replacement: <a href="http://postbox-inc" rel="nofollow">http://postbox-inc</a>. I actually just switched a week ago from Sparrow because I wasn't happy with the way it makes unread mail disappear all the time. I'm growing to love PostBox, and the experience is not hugely different.

Anyone interested in building a new simple and beautiful iOS email product? I think the market's just opened up.

Congratulations to the team, but as a user this is extremely disappointing. Sparrow is the only desktop client I considered good enough to use since Calypso back in the late-90s/early-2000s.<p>Google, please do right by your users and put these guys on projects that will deliver as much user value as that of Sparrow.

In regards to the Sparrow going on sale before being sold:<p>Maybe with every app ever bought there is a risk that the company goes under, therefore no more updates, and you've lost your money... but in this case, it's simply leaving a sour taste for a lot of people. Add me to this list.

Honestly, I feel like I got burnt for paying for Sparrow. I finally bought the desktop and iPhone app in an effort to fund a great product, but then Google swoops in and essentially killed it.<p>Its really ashamed to see such a promising product get sucked inside the bowels of Google.

When I pay premium prices for apps it is under the assumption that I am helping the developers maintain and improve the application.<p>If you are hoping to sell, you should price your app at $.99 and hope to get as many users as possible. That also helps me know what your plan is.

One thing I loved about sparrow is they charged for their product. I thought that by paying money I was supporting a business. There are loads of similar calibre apps out there they could have tackled with the same gusto they approached email.<p>So, what are the alternatives?

Very well designed app, so congrats to them. My only gripe and what's prevented me from using it as my main email app on my phone has been the lack of push notifications. I'm really, really hoping they implement that in an upcoming release.

What I want to know is what's happening to LibEtPan, the open-source IMAP library that powers Sparrow. Dinh Viêt Hoà, the other Sparrow co-founder, maintains it, and I wonder if Google will continue to support development of it.

I'm also sad that Sparrow won't be developed any more (I use both Mac and iPhone apps).<p>But if the Sparrow team will have a chance to improve Gmail, then we will all benefit from it. Hopefully, this is the case. Otherwise, it's just annoying.

We can say "Bon voyage" to ever seeing a Sparrow iPad app. <i>shakes fist</i>

IS NOTHING SACRED ANYMORE???

Oddly the app was on sale a week ago: <a href="http://blog.sparrowmailapp.com/post/27116220357/499sparrow" rel="nofollow">http://blog.sparrowmailapp.com/post/27116220357/499sparrow</a>

This is good news for Sparrow, but for the users it is anything but.<p>I would hope at least that they don't eventually pull the app. Some of us actually prefer the native experience to the webapp one.

I bloody well hope they continue development, and it becomes the official desktop/iPhone client. I love Sparrow, and would hate to see it vanish into the "acquired company" ether.

There's a new native email client coming.. email me for more info.

I was talking with a friend and I realized what bugged me so much, and how to sum it up:<p>It feels like the Sparrow team stopped on first base, when the ball is sailing out of the park.

Congrats to the team! Well deserved. It's one of the better apps I use daily, both on desktop and mobile. Hope they make it better and don't kill it.

The only question that's left is how we can make the Archive button in mail.app to work like it should with gmail. I'd hate going back to mailplane.

Google, please realize Sparrow has a set of unique values the web app can't and likely won't ever provide, and continue its development.

Hooray! Now can they also buy BusyCal so that there's at least one non-braindamaged method of talking to Google CalDAV servers on a Mac?

Great acquisition by Google. Will help Google in stream lining it's iPhone and iPad app offering.<p>I believe now, Sparrow will be a free product :)

If there was a new sparrow-esque app in the market that was drastically better than stock ios mail app, would people buy it?

don't be absolutist <a href="http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/</a> (the general point "do-have-a-business-model-please" is still true, but when I read it I felt something like "you can always trust your friendly for pay app")

Wow, the arrow hitted the heart.

I hope the Google+ team doesn't get ahold of them before they can fix Gmail and apps.

Any idea how much google paid?

FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK! This is horrible news.<p>This comment will likely get down voted, but this is my authentic comment on the story. I am having a very negative emotional reaction to the news. Especially the part about not further developing new features (like the iPad app I have been anxiously awaiting).

This is sad and frustrating, guess I'm going back to Mail.app.

That means they will be getting push notifications now? :P

How incredibly awful.

Anyone see a price of how much Google paid Sparrow?

How long until they buy Collections or RocketDocs?

Great acquisition. Best email client out there.

Where's Atreyu when you need him?! #TheGnothing

How many users/downloads did Sparrow have?

Email is Dead. Long Live Email.

Sparrow is the shit

I haven't used Sparrow, since I don't have an iOS device, but any particular reason why Google thought they needed to buy it? What could Sparrow bring to the Gmail mobile app that Google couldn't do themselves (or well enough)? Or maybe they just wanted it so the competition doesn't get it first, just like Facebook wanted Instagram?

Congrat a Viet :)

Would be nice to see a port to ChromeOS or as a webapp.