I think I’m done with Safari and Apple Mail

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know about my appreciation of reliability in most products, especially software.

Whenever an app isn’t fully satisfying, I’m usually on the lookout for something better, something new. I would go as far as calling this ongoing and harmless quest a hobby.

Some of the apps I use — mainly MacOS default apps — I’ve always taken for granted; I never questioned their “defaultness” despite their limitations. The fact that I am so used to them never subjected them to the same level of scrutiny as third-party apps. Because of these blinding habits, I was under the false impression that they were good enough.

Recently, like others, I started to question these very habits and accepted the idea that some of these apps may need to go.

Safari, get your act together

Safari was among the first to show its cracks. I get that the cracks were always there, but I never cared enough to notice them.

Safari has been one of my biggest frustrations for a while now, but I’ve always remained a loyal user. My habits were so deeply anchored that they made me forgive Safari for its terrible search engine selection, the way it allows content blockers to work (or so I’ve read; that is also why, I think, something as powerful as uBlock Origin isn’t available on Safari), and its legacy performance advantages over Chromium-based browsers are getting and harder to appreciate, especially on my ageing Intel-powered MacBook Air, with its 5-year-old battery.

Recently I’ve grown tired of part of Safari’s behaviour and some of its hiccups. Poor sync of favourites, weird and unexpected error messages, the fan starting to spin while loading some websites, odd extension update behaviour¹, the list is now long enough for me to have trouble remembering everything that I don’t like from the top of my head.

On iOS, I’ve grown so frustrated by the lack of choice for search engines that I even switched to Quiche Browser, which is also based on WebKit. It’s good, and I even turned on “disable JavaScript” by default, and I turn it on when I see a page doesn’t work properly, something that is very hard to do on Safari, even with extensions.

Times and times again, I’ve installed and tried Firefox, Orion, Zen Browser, and others, but I couldn’t get comfortable using them, and I always ended up going back to Safari. Maybe it’s some sort of Stockholm syndrome?

In the end, I think that what I really want is not another browser that is better; I just want a better Safari. Today, this is what Quiche Browser is and why it was so easy for me to adopt it on my phone. I cannot wait for a Mac version.

Et tu, Apple Mail?

The second and biggest issue I’ve had recently with the so-far-so-good default apps is with Apple Mail.

Apple Mail was always the surprisingly good Mac app, the unexpectedly good email client that did its job, got out of the way, and yes, just worked. I’m using it on every device. I’m even using it at work instead of Gmail. It’s minimalist enough, it’s simple to use, and just like with Safari, I’m very used to it. All these reasons never pushed me towards looking at alternative apps like Thunderbird or Outlook; I simply never had the idea of using another email app.

A few weeks ago, as I was cleaning my emptied flat², the faucet that used to be connected to the washing machine broke down, and the room was quickly filled with 5 cm of water (and my despair). After we finally managed to shut off the main water pipe, I searched for the email in which the rental agency listed all the emergency contacts: plumber, electrician, etc.

I couldn’t find the email.

Sure, maybe I had deleted the email. Maybe the email never existed and I imagined it. Maybe it was actually a paper letter we got in the mailbox a few months back. Or maybe I needed to do another search, this time with a different keyword, looking for another sender, etc.

But Apple Mail didn’t help. Instead, below my empty list of search results, there was a small text: “Some Results May Not Appear: Mail downloads and organises messages when iPhone is locked, charging and connected to Wi-Fi.” which frankly felt like Dennis Nedry saying “Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word.”

In the heat of the moment, having my phone basically trolling me was maddening. I would have preferred something like “no results,” even if the app was actually not displaying all messages. At least I could have moved on with my day and avoided wasting precious time trying to come up with a solution to access to all of my emails. The experience was so frustrating — and this wasn’t the first time search left me unsatisfied on iOS — that I felt betrayed by the app.

Driving back home, I also remembered other bloggers’ complaints about Apple Mail throughout the years, which I had previously dismissed, being under the magic spell of old habits and comfort. Kev Quirk, for instance, recently had a bad experience with the iOS version, and issues like this one are regularly reported.

I don’t mind issues. I’m not looking for a perfect app: I’m just looking for an app that I can trust. I don’t like the idea of using an app because I can’t find something better, or because I am too lazy to overcome old habits. I need an app to be useful when I need it the most. Apple Mail let me down.

I will try once more MailMate, GyazMail, even if they don’t have an iOS version, and maybe give a shot to eM Client (formerly known as Postbox).

Isn’t it surprising, though, that the Mac (and iOS) offers dozens of great text editors but barely a few great email apps? Is it because few of us care as much about mail as we do about text editing? What does it say about email, I wonder? Is it because Gmail brainwashed most of us into the idea that email means a tab in the browser? Or is it because there can’t be good business available by building a great mail app, as the free, default alternative is good enough for most people, unlike text editors where specific features are needed, for instance?

In a perfect world, Apple would iron out the little wrinkles of Apple Mail and Safari, fix the tiny bugs, and work towards making it great, competitive, fully reliable apps. In reality, we have an inconsistent email client and an ageing browser, both now covered with a layer of Apple Intelligence that doesn’t seem to address any of their issues.