[lexlambda]

I find it rather strange that so many email providers have to develop their own "app".

There are so many good clients out there, and I'd rather have 1. The team focus on their core offering, and 2. the existing email client is for the same reason (limited developer time, and matureness) a much better choice for security

[slightwinder]

> I find it rather strange that so many email providers have to develop their own "app".

It's probably because people want easy access, and have all features supported flawlessly. Mail has come a long way, but there are always specific features not integrated well.

Also, most of those apps are more a thin wrapper around the web-interface, adding some interface-sugar for desktop-integration and serving as a playground for devs to test the web-apps offline-abilities.

> There are so many good clients out there, and I'd rather have 1.

I've yet to see any good client for me. They all are kinda flawed and limited, many suffering from age or not fitting modern demands. Thunderbird seems to be the only trustable Linux-compatible one which is still actively developed, and even this is app is lacking on many corners. Add-ons are supposed to fill and round up the corners, but without anyone developing them, what's the worth in having them?

Fastmail at least seems to work on developing the mail-standards, and having their own client is probably helping them in figuring out how well those improvements are working and where they are lacking.

[pacifika]

One reason could be that they need one if there are unique differentiators on the roadmap that cannot be added into regular clients. I dont know if this is the case.

[mcny]

That's even more reason for fast mail to actually invest and coordinate with clients, especially with JMAP integration.

This is from August 2019

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/jmap-new-email-open-standard/

This announcement is a slap in our faces.

[alisonatwork]

This is basically where I'm at. I love Fastmail, but going to the effort of trying to get JMAP standardized and then investing development effort to NOT put it in Thunderbird feels like there's no real intent to make email better for everyone, which is disappointing.

[markild]

It's very practical when you use a lot of different devices. It's nice to use native built in email apps, but when using multiple different OSes and device types, it can be very annoying to have the different clients play nice with each other.

[PeterHolzwarth]

Kind of like how duckduckgo, a search engine, now has its own "app."

[pepa65]

Fastmail's killer feature is JMAP, and there are not so many GUI clients for that. Yes, you can use IMAP, but that's just much slower.

[Gigachad]

It’s because IMAP sucks really bad and every email service has features beyond what imap supports. Server side filters for example.

[1718627440]

But IMAP supports server side filters?

[yesbut]

its so they can put ads in it without you being able to block them like you can in Thunderbird.

[happymellon]

What adverts have Fastmail put in?