Call for native email client as a core app
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A common reason to switch to Ubuntu Touch is to become less dependent on Google. On vivid, Dekko is a decent email client that can handle different email providers. Sadly, the app doesn't work on xenial and the developer @DanChapman has indicated that is is challenging (to say the least) to port Dekko to 16.04. Make no mistake here about my esteem for Dan, he has done, and as I understand it continue to make great things for the UT platform.
My goal with this thread is to make a call for a working xenial email client, which I think should be a core app (Dekko or something else). Being such an essential feature on a modern smartphone, I think a native email core app is necessary for UT and UBports to gain traction outside of a small group of enthusiasts.
Thanks to Rudi Timmermans and his Gmail app, I am able to use xenial as a daily driver. I am annoyed by Google, as are many people in this community, but for the time being Gmail (or google apps email) is my only option if I want to read emails on my UT phone.
I am not a developer myself, but I try to help out as much as I can testing things and filing bugs where appropriate. I would really like more people to chime in on this request and enable UT users to break free from Google as much as possible if they like.
All the devs that are working so hard to make Ubuntu Touch such a great mobile OS have my full respect and I understand that moving to 16.04 must be the number 1 priority right now. But, pretty please (with sugar on top), could we gather some clever brains to bring Dekko or some other general email app to Ubuntu Touch!?
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@tomoqv yep a good email client is a must but it is not easy to find and attract developers.
but for the time being Gmail (or google apps email) is my only option if I want to read emails on my UT phone.
Do those email services you are using have a webmail service? Have you try to use the browser to access it?
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You highlight a very important problem in the community: We don't have the people for that.
Of course I'd love to say "Yes, we need to start that right now" and command my team of happy followers to fix the bugs in Dekko 2 and bring it up to 16.04... but I don't have a team of happy followers. I'd love to download the Dekko 2 source right now, fix all of its bugs, and release a build myself... but I don't have the expertise for that, or the time to gain that expertise due to my other responsibilities.
Ultimately we don't need to call Dekko a core app... That won't change anything. We have multiple "core apps" that don't have official maintainers. Dekko needs more contributors to add their love to it so that it can become a better app.
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@advocatux
I would love to switch from Gmail and google apps if I could, but for historic and UT reasons I currently rely solely on Google as an e-mail provider. I have a couple of mail accounts that are not google, e.g. Proton mail, but I really don't use them. -
@tomoqv ah, I thought you were using some email providers other than Google's. That's why I said try if their webmail service works for you, meanwhile Dekko is developed.
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@unisuperbox
I am aware of this dilemma and I try to be as humble as I can in my request, but maybe if we raise the awareness of this issue we could attract more developer interest. If I had the developer skills, I think I would feel pressed to help out in some way. Unfortunately i don't possess those skills.Some people have suggested to not read emails on the phone. It is a compelling thought, but for some of us mobile access to email is important to fulfill our jobs.
I don't have a thought out solution for this, but would it be possible to use some of the monetary contributions to UBports for this purpose?
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@advocatux As someone who does use a non-google email provider, I can say that in my case, for the fastmail.com email, that webmail service seems to work fine in UT on my FP2 phone.
Having said that, I would still much prefer to have a working email app for UT, and I would like to try to help out with that if possible.
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@elias I agree with you, and I also use fastmail
