Versions 1.1 & 1.2

Mail Pilot’s first month on the App Store℠ has seen 2 major updates!

New Features:

• Attach pictures to messages
• Send-only (Alias) support
• Sequential Scrubbing setting
• Ability to change Completed and default folders

Major Improvements:

• Rewritten Quick Reply and Forward with additional functionality
• Auto-detect custom account settings
• Auto-detect common root folder settings
• Cleaner message views and folder lists

…and much more

“Mail Pilot is a superb mail client”

- Dave Johnson, CBS MoneyWatch

Apple, the Apple logo, iPad, and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

Mail Pilot for iPhone + iPad introduces a new Mail Pilot experience without the third-party server, and without the subscription pricing. Mail Pilot for iPhone + iPad is the most stress-free, context-friendly, automated, and sensible email experience to ever hit a mobile device.

Complete & Incomplete – Clarity and control over your email

Email is action based. Mail Pilot turns your inbox into a to-do list. All new messages arrive as Incomplete. Once you finished any tasks, mark a message as Complete and Mail Pilot will archive it.

Review on a Date – A stress-free, automated email experience

If a message should be dealt with on a future date, assign it for review on that day. Mail Pilot will push the message to the top of your message list when you want to take care of it.

Lists – Focused & context-friendly without hassle

Collect related messages from multiple accounts in Lists. Easily manage all newsletters, combine social media notifications, or centralize messages regarding an upcoming event.

Security & Privacy – Experience better email, without compromise.

Your account information, passwords, messages, and contacts are securely stored on your device. All communication occurs directly between your device and your email service provider using the highest encryption provided by your email service. Mail Pilot never stores, processes, or accesses your information on any third party server.

Compatibility

Mail Pilot works seamlessly with all IMAP email service providers. You can always access and use existing folders. Mail Pilot stays in sync with your email servers and all of your devices.

Note: Some have had issues adding FastMail and Rackspace Email accounts to Mail Pilot, but fixes to ensure compatibility with these accounts are coming in the first update!

Apple, the Apple logo, iPad, and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

Since we unveiled the reimagination of email 15 months ago, the concept, workflow, and spirit of the project have impacted the way many think about and use email. We’ve delivered a web application to thousands, but we’re continually motivated to improve Mail Pilot and engage more users. To accomplish this, we’re preparing the release of our mobile and desktop applications, enhancing efficiency and security, and upending our pricing. We have 6 major announcements to share with you.

---

1. No Third-party Server = Incredibly Secure & Efficient

Our users have spoken, and we’ve listened: Email does not belong on any third-party servers.

Mail Pilot’s advanced features currently require an online service. We always utilize the most advanced security and privacy; however, we constantly seek more efficient and secure methods. After months of innovation and development, we’ve managed incredible advances that enable an even better Mail Pilot experience without any third-party servers.

As a result, we will not store or process email account information, message data, or any personal information on our servers (or any third-party servers) for any mobile and desktop apps. All communication occurs directly between your device and your email service provider’s server using the highest encryption available. The new Mail Pilot is incredibly stable, fast, private, and secure.

There are two tradeoffs. First, there will be no single sign-on for the native apps to further improve security. Second, while all native apps will synchronize with each other, the current web app will not be compatible with the native apps (once you switch, we recommend that you discontinue use of the web app). However, we will continue to update and maintain the web app as we roll out the full suite of applications.

---

2. No More Subscription

We realized early that nobody would celebrate paying a subscription for an email client and service. Despite this, we logically chose a subscription pricing model to cover recurring server costs and ensure a reliable, long-term email experience. Because we will no longer incur additional recurring server costs, we’ve completely reevaluated our pricing model to be more convenient and straight-forward for users.

We’re ecstatic to announce that all new users will only pay a one time fee for each Mail Pilot application that they download, with no recurring costs.

Kickstarter backers & Preorder customers, see announcement 6.

---

3. Fully Native

The upcoming Mail Pilot applications will be fully native. No emulations, no wrapped web apps; everything is written from the ground up for each platform. The iPhone® and iPad® app is arriving very soon, Mac® will follow shortly. Windows and Android are forthcoming. See earlier announcement here.

---

4. Out of the gate iPhone + iPad Universal, All IMAP support

Our first fully native application, Mail Pilot for iPhone + iPad, will be in your hands very soon. We worked tirelessly to create a universal application so it would be available for both iPhone and iPad on launch. New customers will pay only once and receive Mail Pilot on all of their iPhones and iPads. All IMAP email accounts are compatible with the new applications.

---

5. Unveiling Mail Pilot for iPhone + iPad

Mail Pilot for iPhone & iPad from Mindsense LLC on Vimeo.

Can’t wait for the iPhone + iPad app? Get notified on launch.

---

6. Kickstarter Backers & Pre-order customers: Pay nothing more for life, you’re in.

Backers & Current customers have paid for access to Mail Pilot for a period of time, but we’re ecstatic to announce that they will now receive Mail Pilot free for life.

They will receive all Mail Pilot applications free forever beginning with iPhone + iPad. We’ll also continue to maintain and update our web application and service, and they’ll never pay for this again. This amounts to more than a $100 value once all of the applications are available, and we’re ecstatic to extend the benefits of our pricing model change to them.

---

Bonus: 7. New Branding

Because the new Mail Pilot is a complete reconstruction and redesign, we’ve totally redone our branding. See the press package, below.

As a sea pilot, hoisting a red and white flag, guides ships through congested and dangerous waters, Mail Pilot helps you navigate your congested, and often dangerous, inbox.

We have some huge news today and an answer to a question asked by many. We’re ecstatic to tell you that the Mail Pilot applications will be fully native. No emulations, no wrapped web apps; everything is written from the ground up for each platform. Further, the first of these fully native applications is almost here! But before we expand on that exciting news, we want to elaborate on the misstep that caused us to start from scratch.

The Background

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, we had just 4 months to deliver reimagined email to our backers.  The Mail Pilot web application has been live for 7 months, and it’s improved immensely since June.  We’ve learned that our approach to email works and that the Mail Pilot workflow truly pushes people forward.

As a society, we expect speed, stability, robust features, and compatibility from our email applications.  We knew this from the start. We also knew that users demand a seamless email experience across all of their devices. That’s why we promised to bring Mail Pilot to every platform imaginable.

Digging Our Hole

This would be straightforward, we thought. It would be efficient and exciting to create desktop and mobile applications from our web-based software. We would build one application and then optimize it for a handful of platforms. After all, big companies like Facebook did this.

After we released the Mail Pilot web application to the public, we began to implement our plan.  We spent about a month porting the code from our web app into a Mac application.  To improve the user experience, we worked to optimize Mail Pilot for that platform.  After an unreasonable amount of manipulating and some down-right trickery, we got Mail Pilot functioning on the Mac.  There was one major problem.  The quality produced by this development method was missing the mark.  The user experience was simply not right.

Digging Ourselves Out

Something had to be done.  After some very tough conversations, we abandoned the quasi-native applications. In order to deliver a quality product, we decided to build fully native desktop and mobile applications.  For a small, bootstrapped team, this is quite the undertaking.  We literally started from scratch — not a single snippet of existing code is used in our new applications.

This fresh start is paying off.  The quality and functionality are passing every bar that we set. The new applications are tremendously stable and incredibly fast. We chose to sacrifice our hopes of delivering these applications in 2012 for the sake of long-term quality. It’s a decision that we have never second-guessed.

Delivering & Prioritizing

This new game plan required us to prioritize. Thanks to Google Analytics, we realized that more than 75% of our customers held an Apple device. We decided to build our first suite of applications for the Apple ecosystem.

Our initial focus has been our fully native iOS application. Our users really want to use Mail Pilot on their iPhones and iPads.  Concurrently, the fully native Mac application is taking shape.

Of course, we continue to develop and improve the web application so users can access Mail Pilot from any desktop web browser. We plan to deliver applications to other platforms in the future. We don’t want to leave anyone out, and we will not compromise on quality.

Our goal is to deliver the iOS and Mac applications in the first quarter of this year.  We’ll announce more specifics on release dates within the next month.

Our Kickstarter backers and preorder customers will be the first to know about and gain access to these applications. You can preorder today to gain immediate access to the web application. You can also sign up to be notified when the native applications arrive.

 

This weekend, we released an updated version of Mail Pilot which includes the new Dropbox Chooser. The fine folks at Dropbox have created something really great, and we are ecstatic about what it means for Mail Pilot users.

Now, when you click “Add Attachments,” you are greeted with a pop-up menu:

You can decide to attach a file from your computer, or from your Dropbox. If you’re already logged in to Dropbox, the file chooser pops up immediately (if not, you just log in first).

Select a file, and “boom,” it creates a link with an icon in your message.

It’s that easy. This is phenomenal work from the Dropbox team. The implications are huge: we are implementing this in our forthcoming mobile applications as well. Dropbox is your cloud file system, and implementing the Dropbox Chooser in to Mail Pilot means that you can attach any of your files to an email even from your smartphone. It’s that easy.

Bonus: You can drag and drop files from your filesystem onto the popup menu.

We all love our tablets, our smartphones, and our laptops.  We all receive too much email, and we all need to find a solution to our email problems.  If you read no further, here’s the actionable message:  turning off email notifications on all of your devices will be the smartest productivity decision you’ve made in a long time.

The Problem

Before I started using Mail Pilot as my daily email tool, my email was in a horrible place.  I was burdened by over 2,500 “unread” messages at any given time, and each additional message notification I received served as a reminder of my failure to deal with these messages.

Moreover, being notified of a message made me no more likely to act on it.  Occasionally, I would read it immediately, and I would most certainly think about what I needed to do with the message, but unless it was an action that took 5 seconds, I would put it off until later. It was distracting, stressful, and counterproductive.

The Solution

So I turned off that “feature”.  I killed all email notifications on all of my devices (including my primary laptop).  In fact, I made the decision to keep my email closed when I wasn’t directly using it.  Now, I devote 10-15 minutes to email several times a day.  The primary benefit has losing the constant distraction and stress of email.  The secondary benefit has been seeing an immediate productivity and organizational burst with my email (this is partially due to this strategy, but mostly due to Mail Pilot).

In fact, I’ve found that by reading my email less frequently, I actually respond to messages in a more timely and effective manner.

The Extreme

Some people have the ability to only deal with email one or two times a day and remain effective.  With my situation, it isn’t logical or effective to go to this extreme.  On a normal day, I probably run an email sprint every couple of hours.  It’s all about finding what works best for you.

And speaking of extremes, please do not set an auto-response that you receive too many messages and it may take a while for you to respond because you only read your email once a day.  This just perpetuates the problem by creating more email for the rest of us.

Subject lines are easily the most overlooked, underused built-in email productivity tool.  If executed properly, well-written subjects can help organize inboxes, increase response time, and prioritize messages.  When implemented incorrectly, subject lines perpetuate the email mess. When you begin to write the subject for your next email, keep these three things in mind:

 Style:

A good subject line is quite literally a line (a handful of words) that describe the subject (topic) of a message.  It shouldn’t be cute like the the title of a book; rather, it should be informative and attention-grabbing like the title of a magazine article.

 Content:

The subject of a message should very clearly describe what the message has in store.  It should be detailed yet brief.  It really is a fine balance.  I can’t fully express how unhelpful it is to get an email from a colleague with an ambiguous subject like Catching Up, or worse Important Information.  I recently received a message with a subject Document only to open it and find no body message and an attachment entitled Untitled Document-copy1.  My ideal subject line would be along the lines of Next Friday’s Meeting with Tom or Revision 3 of Employment Contract.

 Length:

I challenge you to come up with an informative subject line that is one word.  The most effective subject lines will be between 2 and 4 words.  Be careful to not overdo it, either.  A 10 word, two line subject is almost worse than the dreaded (no subject).  It’s all about balance.

 How to do it:

It’s simple: write the subject after you complete the body of the message.  This way, you know exactly what content the message contains and are in a better position to determine the most detailed yet brief line possible.  “What if I forget to write the subject after I write the body?” you ask.  We’ve solved this in Mail Pilot.  The subject line is located by default at the bottom of the compose window, below the body, and right next to the send button.  It’s more intuitive for writing, more productive for you, and it will make you less enemies around the office.

 

Mail Pilot is ushering in a new era of more productive email.

Start your experience with Mail Pilot today!

Building a reimagined email experience has been an arduous task.  As a small bootstrapped operation, we’ve brought Mail Pilot from idea to reality in a year’s time.  Today, we’re excited to officially announce a third member of our team.

Mike has been working with us for some time now, and he has been the main architect of the service aspect of Mail Pilot.  Everything that happens behind the scenes from simply creating your Mail Pilot account to managing all of your Advanced Review messages has been crafted by Mike.  In the email space, development is heavily focused on the server side, so we’re ecstatic to have the strengths and abilities that Mike brings to the table.  Mike adds incredible value to the Mail Pilot team and ensures that we can continue to build the future of email for our users.

Inspiration

Email is in need of a fresh start.  No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I can’t wait to check my email!” Yet, email is not going away, and the industry has no excuse for refusing to innovate. Users have been left to use a system that hasn’t seen real change in years.  Sure, email clients have grown more features and newer designs, but throwing additional components and costumes on top of an impaired system has done more harm than good.  Users are forced to use a complicated system of labels, folders, tags, and marking messages as unread to trick email clients to work how we want them to.  Yesterday’s email no longer works in today’s world.

Motivation

Last Fall, when we realized the depth of this “Email Crisis”, we set out to correct the problem using a different approach.  At the time, we were a senior and recent graduate of Virginia Tech in gorgeous Blacksburg, VA.  We were determined to figure out how email should work in today’s world.  We stripped email to its core and innovated from the ground up.  We recognized that, at the core, all email messages require some form of action.  Fundamentally, email should be action based.  Further, reading a message shouldn’t change its status; users should control message status as they complete required actions. From here, we synthesized more advanced features that don’t overcomplicate email, but rather allow users to use email the way they already think about it.

Activation

By January, we had the belief that email could be made better and an idea to do just that.  One question remained: Is the world ready or able to make the change with us?  So, we put our idea on Kickstarter to see what would happen.  We asked.  Kickstarter answered.  Despite having a mere 30% chance for success based upon our project parameters, 37 days later, the Kickstarter Community helped us raise 154% of our funding goal with over 1,600 backers. Through our Kickstarter outcome, press coverage, and other support, it’s clear to us that the world is ready to change the way we think about and use email.  We’re here to deliver that change.

A New Era

Through the Mail Pilot journey, we realized that uninspired, inefficient software must be thing of the past.  Our mission is to create more intelligent, intuitive solutions that challenge the status quo and allow users to work smarter.  This is sure to be an adventure, and we’re thrilled to be writing our own story.  We’re even more thrilled that Mail Pilot is just the first chapter.

 

Get started with Mail Pilot Public Beta Today!

 

 

 

 

We’ve devoted the last twelve months to creating a reimagined email experience.  From idea, through our Kickstarter campaign, to where we are today, our driving force has been creating a more intelligent, intuitive email experience.  We’ve been in a Private Beta for our Kickstarter backers for 3 months now, and we’re excited to share with the rest of the world what we’ve been working on.

Starting today, you can preorder your first year of Mail Pilot at an exclusive discount and receive immediate access to the beta desktop web application.

When Mail Pilot launches out of beta, it will be available as applications for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and web browsers. Pre-ordered subscriptions will officially begin when we launch out of Beta.

To get started with Mail Pilot, or for more information, visit our Public Beta Page.