Mail...

Today, I decided to say a little something about an Apple program that I love, Mail. I have used a few different e-mail programs and really have only ever stuck with Mail. Other e-mail programs, such as Thunderbird and Outlook, just don't seem to stack up in my mind. I believe that is because of Mail's intuitive use and its integration with many other programs.

Like I had said, Mail is intuitive. As with most Apple software and products, there is a certain "how it should work" feeling behind it. For one, many things of the program are drag-and-drop. For instance, if I would like to throw in a picture, all I have to do is drag it into an e-mail and poof, there it is. PDFs and other files work the same way letting you attach files without much thought. Secondly, I can quickly double-click, or click the plus sign in the bottom left of the viewer window, to add new folders so I can save the e-mails I want to the hard-drive of the computer. Once the folder is created, all I have to do is, again, drag-and-drop the e-mails I want into on of the created folders on the side of the interface. This is one of the coolest ways to quickly organize the mail you want to keep. You can even make folders inside the folders. Lastly, there is a search function on the top of the viewer window that will allow you to search the archives of all or some of the folders that you have for e-mails. If you have a lot of saved e-mails, Lord knows I do, this is an awesome tool for finding just the right e-mail you want to reference or possibly, reply to.

The other part of Mail that sets it apart from other programs, in my opinion, is its seamless integration with other programs. Firstly, Address Book, which is a great program to hold your contacts. With this program Mail will auto-fill the e-mail address in for you as you type it into the "To:" field. While many e-mail set-ups let you do this, the way that Mail searches through Address Book is great. Type in any part of the contact and it will whip through all of your contact cards and find the ones that are best suitable. Also, many other programs, like iCal and iPhoto, let you e-mail through Mail with just a click of a button. Good stuff.

Finally, something that I haven't been able to experience myself yet, the new templates that will be built into the new Mail are very cool looking. The new version will be built into Leopard, the newest version of OS X due in October. What these templates do is make e-mail a blast by letting you basically send beautiful stationary filled with your own pictures that you drag-and-drop in. These e-mails can be viewed by anyone as they are standard format and look awesome.

All-in-all, I have been very satisfied, as a consumer and salesman of Apple products, with Mail. Give it a look.