Sparrow gets an update, adds new features

Sparrow has gotten a lot of press, very quickly, which tells us a little something about the state of email clients these days—we need a new approach to email.  Getting a dozen emails a day in Mail.app isn’t that big of a deal, but when you start to get two or three dozen emails, the application starts to show its age a little bit.   Clearly the Sparrow team has recognized the opportunity,  and they’re taking full advantage of it.  We’ve reviewed the app previously, so if you want a more in depth explanation you should give the review a read.

The Sparrow team has obviously taken the community’s recommendations to heart. They’ve already released an update to their application. They’ve cleaned up the UI, increased the application’s response time, and added an accessible menu directly in the menubar, which we personally requested.  You can read the rest of their release log notes below.

Sparrow is worth keeping an eye on, and it’s turning into a viable alternative to mail.app, especially if you use Google Accounts, or a Gmail account as your primary email hosting.  Sparrow still doesn’t support anything but Gmail currently, but extended support is on the way for other services.

Normally we don’t provide release notes in posts, but we’re going to make an exception for Sparrow, because we believe in what they’re trying to do.

Download the beta

Release Notes:

UI:

  • New sidebar design
  • New selected state for mail cell in message list

Bug fix:

  • Scrolling speed (with non-Apple mouse)
  • Sending mail issues
  • Improved performance in the conversation view
  • ‘Bcc’ issue
  • Multiple drafts issue
  • New mail not appearing in the inbox
  • Crash (Leopard) when changing avatar and signature

Features:

  • Alias support
  • Hide Menu Bar/Dock icon
  • Mini menu in Menu Bar when dock is hidden
  • Copy/Paste images
  • Shortcuts in window mode
Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.