outlook

The trouble with relying on free things

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Screenshot of the announcement that Sunrise is no longer in development

For some years now, I’ve been a user of Sunrise. It started off as a daily email with your events from Google Calendar and Facebook, but over time it evolved into a series of mobile and desktop apps, and a web site, where you could combine all of your various calendars together in one, intuitive interface. This meant that you could have events from Google, iCloud, and any Exchange server, all combined together with your Evernote reminders, gigs from Songkick, Eventbrite bookings, TripIt itineraries and more besides.

It was great, but at no point did Sunrise ever ask for money. Surely it must have cost money to run, and funding from venture capital only goes so far. So I wasn’t all that surprised when, earlier this year, Sunrise announced its acquisition by Microsoft. At the time, they promised to keep everything running, and for free.

At first, there were promising developments. Integration with Wunderlist, another recent Microsoft acquisition, a new keyboard for iOS and Android designed to help you plan meetings whilst in another app, and support for the Apple Watch are all additions made following Microsoft’s takeover. But then the Sunrise team dropped a bombshell this week: development of all of Sunrise’s apps has ceased.

Sunrise’s development team have joined the team working on Outlook for mobile devices. Mobile Outlook was also the result of an outside purchase by Microsoft, this time of Acompli. As you’d expect, the aim of the integration of the Sunrise developers is to improve Outlook’s calendaring capabilities, and, sure enough, a new version of Outlook for iOS was released this week. There’s a bit more background on the Microsoft Office blog, and an update for Android is due soon too.

As it stands, Outlook isn’t yet capable of doing all of the things that Sunrise can do, and so the Sunrise apps will still be available to download for a little while longer. But once Outlook has fully absorbed Sunrise’s features, I expect the apps will be withdrawn.

For me, this is a bit of a bummer. I used both Sunrise and Outlook on my iPhone and iPad; Sunrise to manage all of my calendars, and Outlook for my work email. I deliberately keep my work and personal email separate, and, crucially, don’t have notifications turned on for work messages. My job doesn’t require me to be reachable out of hours; therefore, whilst it’s useful to be able to use my phone to access work email whilst at work or in an emergency, I want to be able to completely ignore it away from work. But I do like to be able to see my work calendars outside of work, and get a holistic view of my diary across both personal and work calendars.

I won’t be able to do this once Sunrise has gone. If I make Outlook my primary calendar app, then it’ll have all of my work emails in there, whether I want to see them or not. Outlook on iOS, as it stands, is still an email client first and foremost; opening the app takes you to your email inbox by default.

So, reluctantly, I decided to take the nuclear option and delete Sunrise from my devices. Sure, it’ll carry on working for a while – probably. But it’ll disappear eventually and I don’t want to be hanging on to a product during its deathrattle.

For now, I’ve gone back to the built-in iOS calendar, which is okay, I guess. Part of the reason why I switched to Sunrise was its superior interface when compared to the stock iOS calendar in iOS 6 and below. More recent versions have been less ugly, but it’s still not got a great user experience even in iOS 9.1, in my opinion. I’m open to suggestions of alternatives – I may give Fantastical a shot, which is £3.99 on iPhone and £7.99 on iPad, both sold separately.

I suppose I shouldn’t have put so much faith in a free service which has no obvious income from users or advertisers. And I think that’s a good lesson in general – if you can’t work out the business model for something, it’s probably best not to rely on it.

So long, Thunderbird

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It’s with something of a heavy heart that I’ve had to give up using Mozilla Thunderbird for my email altogether. You may recall that I now use Airmail at home, but have been using Thunderbird at work. Sadly, Thunderbird is no longer fit for my purposes and so it’s had to go. I’m now using Outlook 2010, just like (almost) everyone else at work.

The reason for the change has been because of our move to Office 365. We’ve migrated from an old Unix system for email, and a proprietary calendar system called Meeting Maker, which also has various other nicknames not to be repeated in polite company. Meeting Maker was a separate application but the server had a CalDAV servlet which could also produce a subscribe-able internet calendar (.ics) file. And the email system was IMAP-based.

Office 365, however, primarily uses Exchange. IMAP and POP3 are provided for email, but it doesn’t support CalDAV for calendars, or CardDAV for contacts. So whilst Thunderbird would be okay for using just as an email client, I’d still have to go back to Outlook for my calendars – at which point, there’s no reason to carry on using Thunderbird.

‘But wait’, you may be saying, ‘you linked to a Provider for Exchange extension only last month!’. I did, but sadly I couldn’t get it to work, and development on it has ceased in any case. There was no way I was able to get my Office 365 calendars working in Thunderbird’s Lightning extension.

The really sad thing is that I’m not missing Thunderbird as much as I thought I would. Unsurprisingly, Outlook works much better when it’s used with an Exchange email server than a generic IMAP one, and it’s nice to be able to set out of office replies without having to go into webmail. It’s also a lot faster in my experience.

To me, Thunderbird’s problem is that it seems to be falling into a power user niche. It’s too big and complicated for basic users, or even people like me who want a relatively straightforward interface for use at home. But it also lacks enterprise features, like support for Exchange. And I’m surprised that Lightning is still an extension, rather than being offered as part of a bundle, given that Outlook comes as a complete package. It needs some love and attention, but with the Mozilla Foundation’s focus on Firefox and its Firefox OS phones, I can’t see it getting any.

Transitioning away from Google

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Screenshot of google.com in April 2013

In light of Google’s decision to shut down Google Reader – and yes, I’m still bitter – it’s fair to say that I’ve been re-assessing how much I rely on Google’s services. If Reader can be shut down, then what about their other products?

An article by Ben Brooks called You Can’t Quit, I Dare You, throws down the gauntlet, although it is also inspired by ‘Your favourite Thursday sandwich’ by Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, and this article by Om Malik. Not long after announcing the closure of Reader, Google announced a new note storage service called ‘Google Keep’, and Om’s argument is that he won’t sign up because he doesn’t trust Google to, erm, ‘keep’ the product running long into the future.

I’m starting to agree, even if I dismissed boycotting Google on purely ethical grounds last year. Is it worth looking at alternatives to Google’s products now, just in case Google kills off products that I rely on?

Google Search

Search was Google’s first product, and is still their most used. In February 2013, its market share was just shy of 90% and I am sure that there are many out there that think that Google is the internet, or at least its only gateway.

Geeky types like me know that it isn’t though, and there are alternatives. Yahoo! Search is still pretty ropey by all accounts, even if I can collect Nectar points from using it. Bing is better, and I actually used it for the research for this blog post rather than Google Search. I could probably live with Bing if I decided to kick Google into touch. I can’t see Google ever giving up on search but Bing seems like a good alternative if needed.

Gmail

Gmail launched nine years ago yesterday, and at the time offering 1 gigabyte of storage was so revolutionary that many thought that its April 1st 2004 launch was actually an April Fools joke – at the time Hotmail offered a mere 2 megabytes, or 500 times less.

Now Gmail is not my primary email account, and never has been. I was already using an email address attached to my domain name and that situation remains the same today. That way I can keep my address even when changing hosts.

But I do use Gmail. After all, I need some way of emailing my host when my web site is down. Again, Microsoft would be my main go-to here for an alternative, in the form of Outlook.com which recently replaced Hotmail. As well as offering quite a nice, simple interface, as an early adopter of Outlook.com I was able to blag quite a nice new email address, and have the embarrassing hotmail.com email address I chose aged 16 forward to it. The only annoyance is that Outlook.com doesn’t support IMAP, and only works over Exchange on mobile devices. On my Mac, I have to use POP3 which is a bit rubbish.

Google Chrome

I mentioned that some people think that Google is the internet and I think this is part of the reason why Google Chrome has recently overtaken Mozilla Firefox as the world’s second most popular web browser. That, and it’s fast, extensible and also tends to be bundled with many other programs.

Like Gmail, Chrome is my backup browser on the desktop. I’m still a Firefox user first and foremost but occasionally my over-zealous blocking of adverts, tracking scripts and insistence on using HTTPS as far as possible breaks web sites, so Chrome is my fallback. But, that could easily be replaced with another browser; Safari, Opera, or even Internet Explorer in its more recent incarnations.

On my iPhone, again I use Chrome as my main browser instead of Safari, but could easily go back, or try a different third-party web browser.

Google Calendar

My personal calendars are synchronised via Google, so I would need to find an alternative here. This would probably be Apple’s iCloud, which supports the open CalDAV standard (Google are actually moving away from CalDAV to their own proprietary protocol) and already integrates with my Mac and iPhone. Getting to work with Mozilla Thunderbird, through the Lightning extension, shouldn’t take much more.

The only major loss would be Sunrise, a third-party iOS calendar app that I use which, at present, only supports Google Calendar and Facebook. Until it supports either iCloud or the calendars stored locally on my iPhone, I’d have to go back to using the built-in Calendar app.

Google Contacts

To keep my contacts in sync between home, work and my phone, I use Google Contacts, which also makes them available in Gmail. My Mac and my iPhone both support Google Contact sync out of the box, and there are a couple of extensions – Zindus and Google Contacts – for Thunderbird.

Like with my calendar, iCloud would be the obvious choice here, as it supports the open CardDAV standard. Alas, whilst my Mac and iPhone are catered for, Thunderbird doesn’t support CardDAV. The SoGo Connector extension should enable this, although I’ve had problems with it in the past.

Google Drive

I experimented with Google Drive, mainly to compare it to SkyDrive and Dropbox, but have since stopped using it and have uninstalled the desktop clients. Dropbox suits my needs far better.

Google+

I rarely use Google+, mainly because nothing interesting seems to happen there. The friends that matter to me are all on Facebook and Twitter, and I doubt the 152 people who have circled me will miss me if I delete my account. It’s not like I post there much.

Google Talk

I’d almost forgotten that Google Talk exists. This XMPP-based instant messaging network integrates with Google+ and Gmail to allow you to chat with friends. But I rarely use it. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are better ways of getting hold of me and for voice chat I prefer Skype.

Picasa

Last year I stopped using Picasa and switched to iPhoto – and compared the two. I maybe over-exaggerated Picasa’s potential death in that article as the desktop program has recently had some updates, although these have been primarily bug fixes. Picasa Web Albums is under-used compared to Flickr, which has a recently re-invigorated community.

Google Maps

I do like Google Maps, and I installed Google’s third party Maps app on my iPhone as soon as it came out. That said, I’ve generally found Apple’s Maps on iOS 6 to be okay. Its point of interest database leaves something to be desired (probably because not many people use Yelp in the UK) but its street coverage seems reasonably complete and the address lookup works okay. I also find its vector-based maps a bit faster and smoother than Google’s,

On the desktop Google Maps is currently my favourite choice, but there are also Bing Maps (the successor to Multimap) which includes support for the detailed Ordnance Survey maps, and OpenStreetMap.

Google Earth and Street View

There aren’t really many alternatives here. I don’t really use Google Earth on the desktop though. As for Street View, Google is one of the few companies with the resources to go out and photograph every street in the world. But it’s not something I’d use every day.

YouTube

Here’s where I’d really struggle. Of course I could delete my YouTube account and the two essentially worthless videos that are on my channel, but I wouldn’t be able to stop visiting. Barely a day goes by when I don’t watch at least one YouTube video. I doubt that will change.

Google Reader

I already mentioned that I’m looking into Feedly as my Google Reader alternative. As much as I’d hoped for a reprieve from Google, I doubt that Reader will be still going in July.

Google Authenticator

I use the Google Authenticator app on my iPhone quite a bit to enable two-factor authentication, not just on my Google account, but on Dropbox, app.net and also this blog. I’m not sure what alternatives exist, and this Quora question on the subject is awaiting an answer.

Google Adsense

I don’t pay Google any money for any of the services I’ve listed above. But the inverse is true here, and Google does pay me for the privilege of showing its advertising on my site. That being said, it’s not as much as I used to get so maybe it’s high time for a change, and a quick Bing search found a list of 10 alternatives. I shall have to look into these.

Google Webmaster Tools

If you have a web site, you need to sign up to Google Webmaster Tools. For as long as Google dominates the search engine market, you will need to make sure that it is indexing your site correctly. And its reports showing 404 errors is very useful for diagnosing site problems. Bing Webmaster Tools exists, but it’s not quite as good.

So can I give up Google?

I think that these are all of the Google services I use – and no, I hadn’t realised just how many there were. In all cases there is an alternative, and I may have to investigate some of them. Unfortunately, some are better than others and in a few cases what Google offers is clearly better than elsewhere.

Of course, by moving away from Google I’m mostly taking my data to Microsoft and Apple – from one big corporation to another, and each one isn’t averse to killing off products. Apple discontinued MobileMe last year, and although some features survive in iCloud, others, like iDisk and Keychain Sync were switched off without replacements. And iCloud is known for reliability problems, although the problems cited in that article are in the APIs that third-party developers use and not in its Calendar and Contact sync services. Microsoft also ‘sunsetted’ several of its Windows Live products recently – Windows Live Messenger being the most famous of these.

I am going to try giving up some Google services though (as did this ex-Microsoft blogger). I’ve removed the Google apps from my Mac and iPhone and switched my default search engine to Bing. I’ll share how I get over the next few weeks.

Why Thunderbird is better than OE

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You may have heard that despite reports earlier in the week, Microsoft will still develop Outlook Express after all. But unless Microsoft pull off something truly remarkable, I’m not going to switch back from my beloved Mozilla Thunderbird. And what’s more, I’ve given you a list of reasons why I’m not switching, in no particular order 🙂 .

  1. Themes – bored of the normal look? Change it. 10 themes are already available and it’s only at version 0.1
  2. Extensions – add on extra features without using shell hooks (like OEQuoteFix uses).
  3. Junk Mail filtering – considering OE is the world’s most popular mail client, I’m surprised this isn’t already in. But it isn’t. Thunderbird uses Bayesian filtering which is one of the best forms.
  4. Better message filtering – much more powerful than the rather basic filtering in OE, and easier to use too! Great for adding a filter to mark out mail that SpamAssasin thinks is spam, since you can specify custom header matching.
  5. Not full of security bugs – I can open an email infected with Klez and know that I won’t be automatically infected. And not a security patch in sight.
  6. HTML Sanitization – you can either view HTML messages in their full glory, or with things like images and CSS removed so that your address cannot be tracked as easily. You can even view them all as plain text.
  7. Sanitization for Junk Mail – if you like pretty messages but still want privacy, you can enable sanitization only for emails marked as junk.
  8. Cross platform – you probably could run OE in Wine on Linux, but this baby runs natively on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. And it’s already being ported to all manner of other OSes.
  9. Text Zooming – it’s been nearly a year since I used OE properly so I can’t remember if it does this, but if IE is anything to go by, even if it did it wouldn’t do it properly. You can make text larger or smaller in all emails, whether they use CSS or not. Great if your aunty sends everything in 64pt fonts.
  10. Automatic folder compression – those DBX files can get awfully big in OE, even if you delete all your mail. Thunderbird can compress them automatically, rather than waiting for you to do it yourself.
  11. Javascript Console – I’ll but good money that OE will never have this feature.
  12. Three-pane vertical layout – Outlook has this, but OE does not. But Thunderbird does 🙂
  13. Customisable start page – Yes, you can change it in OE but only by going into the registry or using X-Setup (a blatant plug because I wrote that plug-in myself 🙂 ). Thunderbird has it on the opening tab of the Options dialogue.
  14. On-screen alerts – You can have it pop up a message near the system tray when mail arrives. Handy that.
  15. Message labelling – Have important emails marked as red, or personal ones marked in green, although naturally you can change the colours easily. And you can set mail filters to do this automatically.
  16. Graphical emoticons – MSN Messenger has this, why doesn’t OE?
  17. Spellchecker – yes, OE has it but in some cases it’s buggy. And you can also change the language without buying a new OS.
  18. Doesn’t get hijacked – one of my ISPs decided to add an ‘Infobar’ to the bottom of OE once, taking of valuable screen real estate. And then there was the Hotmail advertising bar, and the ‘Outlook Express provided by…’. Yes, again X-Setup can fix those but how many users in the world have X-Setup? Probably about 0.1% or something.

I’ve probably missed many others, but that’s 18 features that I personally find useful that OE doesn’t have. Are you convinced yet? 😉

Added: meanwhile, there’s a guide for switching from OE to Thunderbird, complete with screenshots and very simple instructions. Check it out! 🙂