Gmail Inbox is no more, and people are not exactly thrilled by it. The good news is that there are a lot of options out there who work as well for those who were avid users of Inbox. Google’s recent track record of killing popular services is a concern for many users of core options. Sadly that includes Gmail.
The fall of Inbox doesn’t have to because of concern for you. New options are already out there in the market that can help you keep nice and tidy such as Spark for Android. There is a good reason for it: it totally appeals to the Inbox user with a vast number of similar features and new ones to boot.
In the following lines, we are going to dissect this app so you can see for yourself why it’s such a good fit for you.
Design – General Look
The opening screen of Spark shows an interface that is very different from most email clients out there, but that will look very familiar for Inbox users. All notifications are offered in bundles as they do in Inbox, it looks very organized and well thought in conception.
You will find new emails right at the top. The bundling of emails on pre-designed folders will help you feel in control of every email you receive, regardless of their topic. There is not tabbed view such as the one used in Gmail, but all lists are easier to grasp on since every new email will fall in its respective folder according to its category.
Since there is not a massive list to search for, you will not be inundated with information. It makes things easier to process in your head, and it takes very little to get used to. Spark takes a lot of visual cues from other apps. Readdle, the team behind it, has a winning formula in their hands: take a popular but dying application, make it fresh with enough new features and score. The addition of night mode it’s a plus.
Usability and Features – How Good Spark Works?
Inbox was praised all over the internet for having some of the best organizational features offered by any internet client. Spark for Android takes everything that was good about it and make it better in many regards. Searching attachments is here, and it works even better than it used to work in Inbox.
The search tool has been enhanced to work with natural language too. You don’t have to be overly specific in your search queries or use expressions that only work in the email search bar. If you receive large volumes of emails a day, this is great. You no longer need to remember subject lines or senders. Just a specific word will do to get what you are looking for.
Using Custom Widgets
While Gmail just recently introduced the option to schedule emails, Spark for Android has that feature natively. You can choose from many options to send a composed email to a scheduled time and date of your choice. The possibilities are endless, with a range of a specific time to a special “later today” option that sends an email three hours after being composed.
Other customizable features are reminders and the option to snooze emails and come back to later to them. All of these can be tweaked to your preferences, and they work exactly as they did on Inbox. The option to manage the sidebar as you like it’s a plus and something that wasn’t possible in the original, so it’s a welcomed addition.
The best option so far is the ability to add widgets in the top bar. At the moment you can only place two widgets here, but it works much better than pinning emails as it happened in Inbox. If you wish, you may increase the limit to four widgets, and you will have a sub-menu at the bottom of the app that works better for reachability.
Closing Thoughts
Spark Mail will have the attention of Inbox users for the time being. It has everything that made the Google client so popular and more. It’s a bum deal to have a functioning product killed off in such fashion, but it’s always great that someone out there is willing to make things right for those who are used to have things working a certain way. You can download Spark Mail from the Google Play Store and enjoy a great email client.