Readdle has hired former Apple Mail engineering manager Terry Blanchard in a position that will focus on creating the "future of email" for Readdle's popular email client "Spark," working with an entirely new team of his choosing in Silicon Valley. Blanchard's new role, per his LinkedIn page, is vice president of engineering for Readdle.
Spark is modernizing email as we know it. We share a fundamental vision of what the future of email should be. I’ve always admired Readdle for their beautiful and innovative products, which makes them the ideal company to turn that vision into a reality.
At Apple Blanchard worked on the Mail team for six years, where he led a team of developers which created and continually fostered updates for the UX design and development of Apple's first party email client, simply called Mail on iOS and macOS. Besides his new title and location in Silicon Valley, Blanchard's role at Readdle hasn't been given many specifics but it's expected that the engineer will take his expertise in the email client design space and apply it to Readdle's popular stock of iOS and macOS applications.
Last November Readdle launched Spark on Mac, bringing the app's Smart Inbox feature to Apple's desktop and laptop computers for the first time. Smart Inbox intelligently organizes email into different categories (Personal, Notification, and Newsletters), making sure important messages are always highlighted first. Spark continuously learns which emails are most important for you to make inbox management as easy as possible, and on Mac also includes Quick Replies, Touch Bar support, snooze capabilities, and cross-device syncing.
Regarding its new hire, Readdle said that "Terry is a valuable addition to our team and brings years of experience from one of the best companies in the world."
Readdle's range of productivity apps for Apple devices includes PDF Expert, Spark, Scanner Pro, Calendar 5, PDF Office, Printer Pro, PDF Converter, and Documents.
Top Rated Comments
I used Spark for several months with some accounts, but eventually switched to Airmail, which handles large emails much better. I also didn't like the idea of my account credentials being given to Spark, or how they first download your mail to Amazon servers for processing.
Being in Canada, I primarily use Runbox out of Norway for the added privacy, as things below the border ("below the belt") are getting stinky.
Mail is very stable, and fast. After reading an article recently, I realized that the secret to email management is very little to do with the bells and whistles of an app. Its much more to do with smart searching, and Apple's Mail does that incredibly well, with a very low battery hit. I deleted all my folders and switched over completely to smart search folders, and set a rule to archive automatically after a month. My efficiency and control has improved dramatically. Newsletter folder? Yeah, that's not really rocket science. Email is email is email.
1) "Product managers" are marketing employees who sit in on some high level design meetings and liaise with the marketing management chain. No engineers report to them. They do not own the features. They do not run the show. It is a fluff title.
2) "Engineering managers" are engineering managers who are on the hook for everything related to the feature. The engineers report to them. And they frequently do at least bits of engineering themselves.
Any time you see anything attributed to a product manager, feel free to roll your eyes and move on.