Incredimail is an elegant way to manage your e-mail on the iPad. You start by signing in to your e-mail accounts and Incredimail gives you a brief tutorial to show you the major features of the app. The app has full IMAP support so you can add your Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or any other IMAP accounts. A menu button in the upper left lets you quickly switch accounts, and you can also filter by categories within an inbox to look at starred messages, drafts, sent messages, and other mail you have assigned filters.
The beauty of Incredimail is all about the inbox, and I quickly understood why the app was made for iPad and has no version for smaller screens. E-mails are displayed with included images in two columns. There are never more than about eight e-mails displayed on the page, but you can simply swipe to the left to "turn the page" and see the next group of e-mails. In the main inbox screen each e-mail gives you the subject, an image (if there is one), and a preview. You can swipe up and down within an e-mail pane in the inbox to read more of the preview or perform quick actions to reply, forward, mark as read, favorite, or delete. Touching an e-mail brings you to a full-screen view. The inbox is gives you more information than other e-mail clients, and the layout and colorful images really breath life into an otherwise mundane task.
Writing e-mails in Incredimail is simple and elegant as well. Six included types of stationary let you give your messages a unique look -- as long as you don't overdo it. The stationary will definitely be useful, with some that give your message a more festive look for party invites, for example, but it also seems like anyone who used them frequently might have their mail mistaken for spam.
You also get a camera button at the top right to quickly add images. A drop-down menu lets you browse through the folders in your photo library, and you can select multiple images before attaching them to the e-mail.
Incredimail displays e-mail in your inbox so you can get more info than the average e-mail client.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)If you connect Incredimail to your Facebook account, there is also an interesting feature called your Facebook Photo Inbox, but while cool, it's not perfect. Here, Incredimail gives you the latest photos from your Facebook feed and you'll be able to "like" images, but you cannot comment. That's not too disappointing, but in order to like an image, Incredimail insists that you allow it to post to Facebook on your behalf. It might be a matter of personal opinion, but I don't like it when apps post to Facebook without me knowing. However, I did find that I could still browse the latest images without enabling posting by Incredimail, but I don't like how it nags me and doesn't tell me what it will post if I allow it. Hopefully that's something that will be fixed in a future update.
Even with the Facebook feature fumble, Incredimail is definitely a great way to browse all your IMAP e-mail accounts. The visual inbox and clever swipe gestures make browsing e-mail much more fun, and the added stationary will come in handy for special occasions.
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