New .Mac mail interface is here
The promised new-look interface for .Mac Mail is here and it looks good.
A month ago Apple announced a new look for its webmail service, based on the look of Apple Mail, powered by Ajax and with some keyboard shortcuts à la Gmail thrown in.
In general, the announcement met with cautious welcome, although many wondered if it would be enough to stem criticism of Apple’s online offerings.
Now we can all see for ourselves.
The interface looks just like Mail.app except for an Address Book search field in the bottom left:
Preferences offer further options for two-pane or three-pane viewing, large or small mailbox icons, keyboard shortcuts or not, mailbox behaviours, number of messages to view at a time and more.
The most innovative new thing is the introduction of the single-letter keyboard shortcuts pioneered by the Gmail interface.
No doubt many people will find these more convenient that the multiple-keystroke combinations required in the Desktop app, both easier to remember and easier to execute.
Die-hards like me will find themselves pressing the Desktop combinations and wondering why nothing happens, but we will adjust.
Drag and drop is very smooth and welcome, especially as the webmail interface doesn’t allow for all the plugins one might otherwise use to make filing easier and quicker.
If you have a .Mac account, check in and test it out for yourself. Otherwise see Apple’s pitch 
on it. Is it all you hoped for?
[Derik DeLong - and just about everyone else - beat me to it]
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October 27th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Re: “Die-hards like me will find themselves pressing the Desktop combinations and wondering why nothing happens, but we will adjust.”
It’d be more user friendly if Apple allowed both single-letter keyboard shortcuts and the Desktop combinations to work.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
The problem is that most of the desktop combinations from Mail.app also have equivalents within the browser itself, and I would certainly not want to see the page take over the normal behaviour for those shortcuts. That could be just as counter-intuitive in the opposite direction (hitting keys like CMD-N that should make Safari open a new browser Window, and getting a new mail window instead).
The Address Book has also received an equivalent overhaul to bring it in line with the new mail interface. The only thing that doesn’t seem to be supported yet is contact photos. Although there is an obvious placeholder for them, other than your “Me” card, no pictures appear. They don’t sync from the OS X address book, nor is there any way to add them through the web interface.
October 27th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Hmm .. well, I have got one more day to go on my trial with dot Mac; one day to decide to let it lapse or spring for $140 to go with dot Mac. This latest information doesn’t make me burn with desire to go with dot Mac. Maybe I’ll just stay with my $40 FastMail account instead.
SL
October 28th, 2006 at 12:36 am
I’m shocked that they did a total overhaul of the webmail interface, but did not enable any kind of junkmail filtering (or rules at all, for that matter). I guess the problem would be that mail.app by default stores junk locally, but still it seems like there should at least be the option. Count me disappointed.
October 28th, 2006 at 1:02 am
I too am disappointed in that regard. Further, there is still no way to send mail from any account other than your @Mac.com address (or one of the aliases that they let you use). This limits the utility of the webmail interface for me dramatically, as I do not normally send messages from my actual mac.com address unless they’re only being sent to immediate friends and family.
The bottom line is that if your primary (or only) reason to have a .Mac account is e-mail, it’s certainly not worth the price tag. As part of a more comprehensive package, however, it’s hard to beat for it’s simplicity and ease-of-use. iDisk and the .Mac syncing features paid for themselves for me a long time ago.
October 28th, 2006 at 1:09 am
In the screenshot, it looks like you have a little Apple icon in the Safari bookmarks bar. That’s so cool! How did you do it, Tim?
October 28th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Shift-Option-K
October 28th, 2006 at 2:50 am
Jesse David Hollington: Good point, if only they’d been consistent in the first place…
October 28th, 2006 at 3:04 am
How do you re-arrange the columns ???
October 28th, 2006 at 7:03 am
The fact that .Mac Mail still doesn’t have junk mail handling (that I can find after scouring the new UI, help, etc) is really disappointing.
I’m sure there’s a technical reason for this, but I need junk handling in .Mac Mail. Period. I’ll leave it at that.
October 28th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Unfortunately there is no way to forward a mail message to multiple users… using the address book. The integration just isn’t there at all.
October 29th, 2006 at 7:36 am
I beat Tim to the punch? Say it ain’t so! :)
October 29th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Scandalous but true! :)