Yesterday, during Google I/O, there was a post made to the Google
developers blog about a new GMail API that was being rolled out. While it was
not mentioned in the keynote (at least not that I heard), I think it is one of
the coolest things that was announced during the time. For a long while, I have
been looking for an email client that will provide some of the
features of gmail while still providing the flexibility and extensibility of a
desktop email client. Unforunately, the problem for many of them was that IMAP
was just not a good enough interface. With this API, I am hoping that a
reasonable client can be made.
Of course, this means that the client would be tied to GMail and the GMail API,
which I am not sure is the a sound business model. Google is very good at making
good projects and then abadoning them or changing their terms of use. They
killed Google Reader and Google Wave, despite them being very useful products.
They added usage limits to Google Maps. I expect that will force an
email client that uses thet GMail API to be an extension of an existing email
client (MUTT). The good thing about email, though, is that there is always a
standard API to fall back on if Google decides to axe GMail or the GMail API.