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   Sparrow Bought by Google

   Adam C. Engst

   The minimalist email client Sparrow ' or, more accurately, its
   developers ' has been [1]acquired by Google. Although the company's Mac
   and iPhone clients will remain available and supported (at least for a
   while, I can't imagine they'll stick around for any significant amount
   of time), the developers are joining the Gmail team.

   This acquisition isn't terribly surprising, since the market for email
   clients has long been weak, and although the Mac version of Sparrow was
   extremely modern looking and had some interesting interface ideas, its
   rough edges and performance problems always prevented me from using it
   for anything beyond quick tests. However well Sparrow may have sold, it
   clearly wasn't enough to prevent the team from taking Google's
   acquisition offer.

   It probably won't be possible to connect specific Gmail changes with
   the Sparrow developers, but those of us who rely on Gmail can hope that
   their ideas inform new and innovative features. I would be surprised to
   see dedicated Mac and iPhone Gmail clients significantly different from
   what Google has done already, since Google's emphasis is always on Web
   apps, and platform-specific clients from Google are generally just
   windows onto those Web apps.

References

   1. http://sprw.me/

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