Canary Mail

I’m very picky about email apps and Newton has spoiled me for the past three years. When they told us they’re closing shop, I went through more than a dozen third party email apps to find one that suits my preferences. I am a firm believer that premium features are worth paying for if done it’s done right. Canary, though relatively new, has a lot of key features all email apps should have: color coded email by account, email tracking, and EXCELLENT tech support just to name a few. Though not quite up to Newton standards, this app seems promising and I look forward to future features and releases. There are small nuisances like the inability to sort accounts after you create them, and the ability to pick notification sounds but these are trivial next to the functionality and the security provided by Canary. It’s also a bit slower to load emails than Newton. But for now, it seems I will stick by Canary and see what it becomes!

ask user to change the rating

I’ve been requesting basic features from canary for months that are found in other email apps, and this “new” version includes none of them. In fact, I can see nothing new in the design, settings, or appearance of the app. Looks like a ridiculous excuse to charge loyal users again. What a crock of **it. In response to the developer's boilerplate answer to my review, the app has basically the same exact features as before with some minor vague "redesign", but basic features such as an instant undelete feature and the ability to see more than first names in the headers of email threads are still missing despite being requested repeatedly by users and being found on almost all other email apps. So to the developer, stop posting BS boilerplate excuses and start delivering done actual new useful features. To the developer: you completely miss the point. Yes, you have gussied up the interface a little and put a few new features in place that nobody needs, but your app is woefully behind other email apps in basic features that you continue to ignore. People keep requesting these basic features, and you ignore them. So yes, there are some new features and yes each screen looks a little different, but basically you have added nothing of any practical value. Try adding a few features that people actually need and request and maybe people will be willing to pay for them.

A year ago I needed a new email client after I found out Newton has major privacy concerns and violations. I settled on Canary. A small payment for an email app that respects your privacy. While it was overall fairly good, it had its issues and felt like a downgrade at the time. That all changed with version 3.0. The new update makes it visually exactly what I want out of an email app. Everything is thoughtfully places and naturally follows the design of an iPhone. It’s packed with many little features I enjoy like the ability to change the icon color as well as adjusting to dark mode based on the iPhone system settings. This update was more than I ever expected and made the in-app purchase for all of the features well worth it – not only for their added usefulness, but also to support the developers. I really appreciate the developer’s respect of my privacy and am quite content with the most recent update. Keep up the great work!

ask user to change the rating

The good thing: the PGP encryption and decryption works indeed like a charm! The bad thing: the app is too buggy for everyday use. The starred messages do not correspond to the starred messages in the email account (unstarred messages appear, even after refresh). The email address is not always shown when you write to someone. You cannot edit text between the incoming text lines when replying. Search only searches locally on the device (and hangs beyond that). Choosing an addressee is painfully slow. When you get a notification for a new email, that email has most likely not yet downloaded. It usually takes several refreshes to get it on the phone, and often some more refreshes to also get the *content* of the email on the phone (even with good internet connection). Sometimes the app just crashes. Writing a draft on the phone, and then opening it on the email provider Web page fortunately no longer erases the email (as it was before), but the email is not in draft mode (need to copy paste it out into a new draft). In short, too much pain... That is unfortunate, because the idea is great!

ask user to change the rating

The new update looks nice and new but is lacking and buggy. For example, it still takes a long time to download new messages from the server. Sent messages don’t show up in outbox until much later and when composing a new message it will include all of my contacts in the email as opposed to the one I specifically chose. You have to them click down to the body or subject to actually erase your entire contacts from being accidentally cc’d on the email. This is rather annoying. Also when I sent an email last, it’s displaying someone else’s name in place of their contact. For example, will send an email to my mom - let’s call her “Jennifer” for the purposes of this review - and once sent, it will be renamed to “Richard” in the outbox. Really strange. In addition, the app continues to freeze. I’ll leave an email to open up another app and when I go back to Canary, I’ll have to wait 5 seconds for it to be clickable otherwise nothing opens. Takes too long to load.