I'm a new user of AquaMail (very much liking it so far though - just paid for full version). However I'm currently still running it in parallel with my phone's original email app (Samsung Galaxy S3) and while the old one is woefully lacking in features and options, the Message List view in particular is somewhat more elegant than Aqua's at present.
Here's a side-by-side comparison, Samsung on the left and Aqua on the right (nothing too confidential in here, my inbox is really boring today!):
Points that I think could very much improve Aqua include:
- Slightly increase the padding around each entry to give the text more room to "breathe", which would make it feel less cluttered and more comfortable on the eye (as I've said elsewhere, maybe a None/Tight/Medium/Loose padding option?). I know this slightly reduces how much can be squeezed onto one page, but I generally prefer readability and clarity to simple quantity.
- Use a colour bar down the whole of the left-hand side of each entry to differentiate mailboxes, rather than the small corner-flash used at the moment. This makes the source much more obvious. It could possibly even spread a few pixels wider underneath the tickbox if you want to save space?
- The date separator line could be a little tighter still, and contain extra info such as the number of messages on that date and a tickbox to select/deselect everything from that date - and the S3's usage of Today/Yesterday plus the calendar date is quite nice without looking cluttered. The upper/lower 3D-effect graphical shading elements seem to make it stand out better too, and are rather more pleasing on the eye, but that might be more of a personal choice.
- The preview text in Aqua appears to be using basic plain-text alternate elements for HTML/RTF formatted emails, resulting in less-than-useful content. Compare the third and fifth (Facebook notification) messages for example; the "Hi Andre, ==================" version in Aqua is completely meaningless compared to the parsed text in the S3's email app. I know that previews are always going to be a little condensed and odd to read, but the current method doesn't always work and needs updating.
- Do you think there is enough space on the right-hand side of the top "Inbox" bar to put the Refresh, Create and Multi-Select icons in there too? That would remove the need for the bottom bar to be displayed at all, until such time as the user selects anything when it could pop up with the appropriate list of options.
I hope you take these suggestions in the spirit they are intended, to help make Aqua an even better app than it currently is - it's just that running these two apps side-by-side I find myself drawn to the features of Aqua, but also to the simpler elegance of the visual interface of the stock app.
Andre
