[MyTwoCents]

I use Apple Mail at home and love it. Unfortunately, it won't work through the proxy server at my workplace. Entourage works fine using the proxy settings in its own preferences. I'd think that Apple Mail would be able to look at the proxy settings in OSX's Network Preferences. Is anyone else having that problem?

[bigcloits]

Thumbs down for this review. I am going to stop reading MacWorld reviews: they are just not hard-hitting enough for me. I actually want to know if a product is flawed.

Mail.app is a house of cards of an application, as everyone who knows anything about it knows perfectly well. It crashes significantly more often than I change my socks. It has an extravagant list of UI irregularities, inconsistencies and bugs. Its IMAP support is sloppy at best. Inflicting another message data format on us cannot be forgiven either. The note and to-do features in 3.2 are half-baked.

While the app does have some redeeming features, it can and should be thoroughly hammered by any serious reviewer for its many glaring flaws.

[jbru34]

I was wondering is there anyway to link my school Novell Groupwise account to Mail 3.2?

[Thermo]

I totally agree with you.
I bought my MacBook Pro a year ago and I love it except for Mail.
Mail is a completely unacceptable product for Apple to put out. I have an iPhone so I need to use Mail/iCal/Address Book to sync.
Anyone who says that Mail is the best product they have used show their ignorance and simple-mindedness. Windows users have a program called Outlook 2007 and Mail can not compare to it. Email, Contacts, To-Do, Notes, RSS are all in one convenient application which totally increases productivity and ease of use
Mail is a total let down and the writers at Macworld should show integrity and call Apple out on this product.
Mail crashes on me between 1 and 10 times a day.
I can't use the Notes feature because it creates several duplicates.
The RSS is a joke. After i read an item in a feed, i delete it so that all the feeds are empty. Mail arbitrarily picks a feed and reloads all the items in a feed as new and I can have as many as 2400 "new/unread" items 30 minutes late and i have to go back in clear them out again which is extremely time consuming.
Macworld should criticize Apple when there is problem with one of their products. The one thing i have come to notice about Apple is that they always think they are right and they won't change unless they have to. The only way for us to get them to make a better product is to criticize them on legitimate problems (ie. they now have an iPhone SDK which never would have happened except that people criticized them and did something about it)

[Thermo]

Apparently you have never used Outlook 2007 on Windows

[CheeseHead]

{quote}Anyone who says that Mail is the best product they have used show their ignorance and simple-mindedness. Windows users have a program called Outlook 2007 and Mail can not compare to it{quote}

Umm... Outlook 2007 is not included with Windows... Maybe that is why nobody is comparing the two... I think someone comparing a $500 software package to a bundled app is more ignorant and simple-minded than someone who just wants a simple mail app.

{quote}Email, Contacts, To-Do, Notes, RSS are all in one convenient application which totally increases productivity and ease of use{quote}

I really don't care to have one toilet-bowl application. I can easily switch apps with command-tab and the command-h to hide the apps or I can view it all at once. Also if you don't like one app you can substitute it for another. As long as they all work together there is really no reason they need to be in one app.

{quote}Mail crashes on me between 1 and 10 times a day.{quote}

I'm running it 16 hours a day. Has not crashed once since installing Leopard? I guess I must have something wrong with my system...

[Thermo]

People are posting that Mail 3.2 is the best mail client they have used. They are not saying it is the best free product or the best product included with an operating system.
Just because Apple includes it with a system, doesn't mean that it gets a better rating. A program should be rated on its merits, not on its price. Just because it id free doesn't make it good. Some people might think that is it is a better VALUE that Outlook 2007, but that doesn't mean it is a better product. (And in reality, Mail wasn't free. I spend $3500 on the computer it came with. If it was truely a free program, you wouldn't have to buy a computer to get it and they would offer it for free on the Windows platform as they do iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari)
I like some of Apple's products (I have a 15" MacBook Pro and an iPhone), but some of their products suck. I also think that Microsoft has some bad products but they have good products as well.
As an Apple user and advocate, I am sick and tired of the stereotypical fanboys that blindly accept everything Apple does as perfect. Microsoft does some things better than Apple and Apple does some things better than Microsoft.
As more and more people switch to the Mac, Apple will have to face more criticism from users that are more rational and will judge their products on their merits and not by the logo on it. I just want the best product no matter who makes it.
I am a user of Mail 3.2 and I want it to be the best mail program, I will criticize it but at the same time I am longing for Apple to make it better.

[bigcloits]

Totally agree with you, Thermo.

[jpp_zoso]

i agree w/ hayesk...and i'll add one more shortcoming, at least for business use.

is it possible to change the default reply header...something along the lines
of what the forward header looks like? we have some strict ediscovery rules to
abide by at work, and the reply headers is one of them. i've been searching on
line for an applescript or plugin or something that will allow this,
but have struck out so far. if the reply header can't be modified, i'll
be stuck with dunderbird.

[CheeseHead]

{quote}If it was truely a free program, you wouldn't have to buy a computer to get it and they would offer it for free on the Windows platform as they do iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari){quote}

I never said it was free. I'm just a mac user so I don't really know how to explain it to you. Maybe you need me to create a spreadsheet or a powerpoint presentation or something for you to understand it, but I'm not because I have more creative stuff to do. Mac=Mail app, Windows=Outlook Express. If you want Outlook 2007 it's going to cost you extra.

{quote}I am a user of Mail 3.2 and I want it to be the best mail program, I will criticize it but at the same time I am longing for Apple to make it better.{quote}

Why does Apple have to make everything... Apple is not a Microsoft. They don't need to dominate every aspect of the computing experience. That's what third party developers are for. Why aren't you directing complaints at Microsoft for not making the Office version for the Mac more comparable to the PC? They are, after-all, the ones who produce your golden standard for a mail app.

{quote}I am sick and tired of the stereotypical fanboys that blindly accept everything Apple does as perfect.{quote}

I never said everything Apple does is perfect. I absolutely hate the 3D dock and was not too thrilled about the transparent menu bar either. Just because I'm not on here bashing Apple doesn't mean that I'm happy with everything they do. I'm wise enough to direct my feedback to Apple where it really matters.

The fact is that mail provides most mac users with what they need, and in a mac way of doing things. Maybe it's a shock to you coming from the PC that we are fairly happy with mail, but it's the way we are and it certainly doesn't make us "fanboys" either.

[CheeseHead]

{quote}Totally agree with you, Thermo.{quote}

Totally agree with what? That Apple should drop all of their innovative work on other products to recreate the wheel... Exchange server is Microsoft's proprietary architecture. Is it really asking too much that they create the mac client comparable to Outlook 2007?

I think Apple has done a great job with mail and it meets the majority of mac users expectations. It is also a sign that Apple is using business standards like 80/20.

[alderete]

I have to disagree, strongly, with the folks who say that Outlook is the right model for email, completely integrated with calendar, contacts, etc. They usually assert that it's a big boost in productivity, or ease of use.
But I've got years of experience (at work) with Outlook on Windows and Entourage on Mac. I love having those three applications be separate, into Mail, iCal, and Address Book.
No, none of them does everything I might want (though Address Book is very close). But they all do their jobs reasonably well, and there's more integration between them than you might guess. Certainly, I have found it easier to add appointments or contacts to my external applications than I've ever found it to work in Entourage.
I switched to Mail about a year ago, after having used Eudora for more than a decade for my personal mail. I miss a few things about Eudora, and still have to hunt through the menus of Mail on occasion, but overall it's been a surprisingly smooth change. I've been using email on Macs for nearly 20 years, and on balance I'm very happy with Mail.

[JakeT]

Thermo said:

People are posting that Mail 3.2 is the best mail client they have used. They are not saying it is the best free product or the best product included with an operating system.

Just because Apple includes it with a system, doesn't mean that it gets a better rating. A program should be rated on its merits, not on its price. Just because it id free doesn't make it good. Some people might think that is it is a better VALUE that Outlook 2007, but that doesn't mean it is a better product. (And in reality, Mail wasn't free. I spend $3500 on the computer it came with. If it was truely a free program, you wouldn't have to buy a computer to get it and they would offer it for free on the Windows platform as they do iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari)

I like some of Apple's products (I have a 15" MacBook Pro and an iPhone), but some of their products suck. I also think that Microsoft has some bad products but they have good products as well.

As an Apple user and advocate, I am sick and tired of the stereotypical fanboys that blindly accept everything Apple does as perfect. Microsoft does some things better than Apple and Apple does some things better than Microsoft.

I'm a fan of the best product, whoever makes it. I hate Outlook. Not only would I not pay for it, you couldn't give it away to me. You'd have to pay me to use it. Oh, wait, I do get paid to use it at work. :-)

[alderete]

For the folks who are complaining that Mail crashes on you constantly, I find that Mail is extremely stable for me. Are you certain that the problem is really Mail? Do you have buggy plug-ins, or Input Managers, or haxies installed on your system, that might be the real source of the problem?
I used to do end user computer support, and probably the time a user got the maddest with me was when she complained of her computer crashing all the time (in the Mac OS 6.0.x days). I visited, took one look at her extensions, turned a bunch off, including SoundMaster, and told her the problem was solved. It was, but she hated giving up those "fun" toys, more than she wanted her computer to be stable. People love their customizations, in ways that are not rational.
I'm all for judicious use of plug-ins and so on; I have several plug-ins for Mail, for Safari, and a universal Input Manager for editing in TextMate. But they are all carefully selected and tested; I had to give up Saft, as much as I liked it, because when it was installed, Safari became unstable, locking up or crashing regularly. I was sad when I disabled it, but I am happier because its detrimental effects are gone. (And who knows, maybe Saft will be stable for others.)
The point is, be sure you're blaming the right software for stability problems. Many people find Mail to be stable, and I assure you, it's not because we installed extra stuff to make it so.