Desktop email dying?
I’ve gone through so many email clients in my lifetime. Just remembering back to college, I’ve used Netscape, Outlook Express, Eudora, Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail. When I established this website, I opted to use Google Apps with my domain, and experience Gmail. It was a great decision, but it’s left me with some uncertainty over how to access my email.
Apple Mail can sync with my IMAP Gmail account, and I like that for clicking through email links in Flock or Firefox. But the interface can’t beat Gmail’s web interface. I have a standalone browser (Prism) for that. I use it most of the time. But using Gmail, whatever the interface, has signaled a major life change for me: my email is no longer residing on my home computer.
I have Outlook *.pst files going back to my undergraduate days at Clemson. I like archiving email because it serves as the journal I never had time to write. Using Gmail doesn’t entirely preclude archiving my mail (Apple Mail works well with Gmail on this), but it’s still a big shift for me. It’s worth it, though, because my email is portable and convenient. No more using horrible ISP webmail interfaces. No more fragmented “Sent” folders.
Is this shift indicative of a larger move away from desktop email? Lifehacker argues the case.
Share this Post[?]
