Spark has managed to attract one million users on iOS and macOS over the years. But every time I’ve written about Spark, I’ve received many comments asking when the app would be available on Android. The answer is today.
Spark is an email client developed by Readdle, the company behind many popular productivity apps, such as PDF Expert, Scanner Pro, Calendars 5 and Documents. With email, the company is tackling a much bigger industry dominated by giants, such as Gmail and Microsoft Outlook.
That’s why Spark focuses on power-user features, customization and collaboration. The app is available for free and you can optionally pay to unlock more collaborative features.
The timing of the release is perfect as Google Inbox is shutting down this week. If you’re into smart email clients that automatically sort your inbox based on multiple criteria, Spark could fit the bill.
It starts with smart notifications. You can let Spark ignore non-relevant emails and notify you on important threads. Similarly, the Smart Inbox view puts newsletters and less important emails in separate categories so that you can focus on what’s important.
When it comes to dealing with individual threads, you can snooze them, schedule an email to send it at a later time and date, set up reminders and more. Many of those actions are now available in major email clients, so it’s important to know that you can find the same features in Spark.
Spark also lets you turn your inbox into a collaborative experience with your team, like Front. You can assign threads to other team members, comment on an email and @-mention your coworkers. You can also write a draft together pretty much like in Google Docs. Advanced features cost $6.39 per user per month.
Some features aren’t yet available on Android. The company is working on quick replies, email templates, email delegation for teams, the calendar view and third-party app integrations.
Samsung just announced the official pricing and release date for its new Galaxy S10 5G. The other three S10 models — Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10+ — are already available for sale in every major market, and the upcoming Galaxy Fold is set to finally hit store shelves on April 26th. That leaves one more big flagship smartphone launch for Samsung in 2019, and the Galaxy Note 10 is shaping up to be the company’s most impressive handset of the year.
Everything we’ve seen from Samsung so far in 2019 has been quite impressive, actually. The bold new design on the Galaxy S10 series is a breath of fresh air compared to last year’s Galaxy S9, which was boring and uninspired. Thankfully, the S10 sports a wonderful all-screen design and it’s packed full of nifty new features. Then there’s the Galaxy Fold, which the company had been teasing for years before it was finally unveiled back in February. The design isn’t quite as impressive as what we’ve seen from Chinese smartphone makers like Huawei and Xiaomi, but Samsung’s first smartphone with a foldable screen will definitely still turn heads when it’s released later this month. As great as all those phones are though, the Galaxy Note 10 may end up being the cream of Samsung’s crop in 2019. Now, a new report suggests that Samsung will change up its Galaxy Note strategy this year and do something it has never done before with the upcoming Galaxy Note 10.
With just a few months left to go until the Galaxy Note 10 is expected to be unveiled, leaks have begun flowing. So far, everything we’ve heard has been very good news. The Galaxy Note 10 is expected to feature a new design that borrows from the Galaxy S10’s all-screen look, but it’ll likely be a bit more square since that has been the case with all Note phones in recent years. We’ve heard the new Note 10 will likely feature a quad-lens camera system on the back with some nifty new features, and we also know there will be a 5G version of Samsung’s flagship phablet. Now, a new report suggests that another big change is coming this year.
According to Korean-language financial news site The Bell, Samsung plans to release two different Galaxy Note 10 models this year. We’re not just talking about a different SKU with 5G support that features the same design as the regular Note 10, we’re talking about an entirely different version of the phone.
The report states that Samsung will release a main Galaxy Note 10 model in all key markets around the world, but a second version of the Note 10 with a smaller display will also see a limited launch. According to the site’s sources, this new smaller Galaxy Note 10 model will only be released in European countries. “We know that the Galaxy Note 10 will come out on the market in two different models,” an unnamed source from within Samsung’s supply chain told the site.
It’s unclear what the smaller Galaxy Note 10 model might be called or why it might only be released in Europe. The smaller Galaxy S10e model from Samsung’s new S10 lineup has reportedly been selling quite well all around the world, so it seems odd to think that the company might confine the smaller Note 10 version to just one region. As for the main version of the Galaxy Note 10, the report states that the phone will feature a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, but it doesn’t offer any other details about the device.
There's been at least one moment in the past year when Sean Murray, the creator of No Man's Sky, has been seated around an awards-ceremony table with the people behind Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege or Warframe, and they've all shared a moment of incredulity.
"We're like, 'Yeah, so, two years ago was pretty rough, right?'" Murray said, laughing. "And everyone's in the same boat."
All of these games, No Man's Sky included, were not particularly well received at launch. However, each team kept the updates rolling in, and they eventually found themselves on awards lists the world over. Fortnite added battle royale and transformed into a multi-billion-dollar franchise; Rainbow Six Siege embraced esports and DLC, and garnered 40 million registered players; Warframe chased an aggressive content-release schedule and listened to its core audience, and it's now one of Digital Extremes' most successful games.
No Man's Sky rolled out a steady stream of updates to deliver the features that fans really wanted (and expected from day one), and climbed its way up from "cautionary indie tale" to "Best Ongoing Game award nominee" in just two years. Today, it's a universe-sized astronaut simulator packed with quintillions of planets, absurd creatures on land and sea, plus crafting, mining, building, flying and oodles of exploration. This summer, the gigantic No Man's Sky Beyond update goes live, bringing three major features to the game, two of which are public knowledge: MMO-style mechanics and, announced just last week, VR support.
Hello Games is bringing No Man's Sky to every headset on the market via Steam VR and PlayStation 4 for PSVR (with an exclusive physical edition as well as a digital offering). No Man's Sky VR isn't a separate mode; instead, it incorporates virtual-reality players into the existing game. VR players can join games with non-VR friends, and they'll receive all future updates. Same game, new input method.
"It feels very comfortable to me in terms of a fit for No Man's Sky," Murray said. "If I'm honest, we're supporting VR because we want to. Genuinely, I think it's creatively led more than necessarily commercially or anything like that. It just feels like a good fit."
After spending 15 minutes with the game in full VR glory, I can't help agreeing with Murray. No Man's Sky makes sense in VR, putting you directly in the space suit -- jetpack, multi-tool, inventory and all. The multi-tool, which mines minerals, blows holes in the terrain and builds towering structures out of nearby organic matter, lives in your right hand, while inventory can be pulled up as a hologram on your left arm, streamlining the crafting process.
Walking involves a teleportation system that serves its purpose just fine, though there are a handful of other ways to navigate new planets and the surrounding interstellar sea. First, there's the jetpack, which is loads of fun yet slightly disorienting in VR, with the most potential to cause headset-related nausea. However, No Man's Sky VR also has vehicles, swimming and -- this is the big one -- spaceships.
It takes two hands to steer the ship, pressing and pulling the throttle with your left hand and using a joystick to direct with your right, and the entire process is visceral in a way that only VR can provide. Flying a ship in VR -- racing over mysterious planets and up, out of the atmosphere in a tunnel of light and space dust -- is an absolutely fantastic feeling. Then, the hyperdrive clicks off and the galaxies finally come into focus. Asteroids loom like mountainsides, and flying between them is smooth, thrilling and profoundly peaceful. Planets sit, suspended in the ink of space, impossibly large. Everything is frightening and gorgeous in equal measure, shining a light on the incomprehensible size of the universe, the planets, the space rocks, the ship, yourself.
This sense of scale and immersion simply can't translate on a 2D screen.
If the goal of No Man's Sky is to make players feel simultaneously miniscule yet deeply connected to a network of atoms that stretches in all directions, forever -- if the goal of No Man's Sky is to make players feel, full-stop -- then VR is the best way to play. This sense of scale and immersion simply can't translate on a 2D screen.
Murray has had a long time to think about interstellar scale. His parents traveled a lot when he was young, and at one point they ended up running a million-and-a-quarter acre ranch in the Australian outback. At night, Murray would stare at the dense blanket of stars and dream about their depths; by day, he would play Elite, devour everything sci-fi and program his own games. No Man's Sky VR is the unique result of decades of stargazing and coding.
"If five-year-old me could see that you're putting on a headset and being in this world, he would be very excited about that," Murray said.
Hello Games
What's next
Back at the awards-ceremony tables, surrounded by a cabal of developers who successfully staved off extinction, No Man's Sky stands out because it comes from a small, independent team. Hundreds of developers and millions of dollars put together Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege and Warframe, each, while the average number of people at Hello Games, working on No Man's Sky, was six.
This tiny team propelled Murray to continue improving No Man's Sky after a launch so disastrous it culminated in a failed lawsuit accusing Hello Games of false advertising. At the same time, developers could see something the Twitter mobs couldn't -- hundreds of thousands of people were playing No Man's Sky. And, the average play time was an impressive 25 hours (nowadays, it's 45 hours).
No Man's Sky wasn't a failure by any means, but public perception was sour. Only the developers at Hello Games (and at least one prophetic games journalist) could see its true success and potential.
"They are super talented and I didn't want to just move on and let that be their legacy," Murray said. "It's really nice for them to be able to say to people, 'I worked on No Man's Sky,' and people to be really happy and positive about it now. That is something that they deserved."
By the time No Man's Sky launched in 2016, it had become a tentpole game for Sony as it attempted to woo players to the PlayStation 4. Hello Games benefited from a massive marketing push, coordinated by Sony, that set expectations extremely high and ultimately contributed to the game's unfavorable reception. Many of the features highlighted in these ads -- such as live, random encounters -- would need more time to be properly implemented. That's what Hello Games has been working on ever since, and it's what No Man's Sky Beyond is all about.
"It's become so much simpler two years out from launch," Murray said. "At launch, we were so focused on trying to please the partners that we were working with, trying to market our game, trying to live up to expectations that we were really struggling to meet."
"It's become so much simpler two years out from launch."
No Man's Sky Beyond is a three-part update hitting the game this summer, and VR is the second tier. The first part, No Man's Sky Online, adds new social and multiplayer features to the game. The third arm of No Man's Sky Beyond is unknown for now, but Hello Games says it'll share more information soon. Whatever it is, it'll surely play into the sense of galactic immersion and scale that Hello Games is still building three years after launching No Man's Sky.
"There's this cool moment that we were experiencing of two or three of you being on a planet and feeling really tiny in amongst everything," Murray said. "There's a nice camaraderie there of, oh, it's just us and we're flying our ships beside each other or whatever. So you're looking out the window and it's really nice to see your buddy there and realize how small you are and have that experience together. It's a really nice moment."
Today, Google is officially shutting down Inbox, its alternative email app to the company’s main Gmail app. But as one email app dies, another is reborn, with popular email app Spark finally making the jump from Apple’s platforms to Android — just in time for all the former Inbox users looking for a new app.
I’ve had the chance to try out a beta version of Spark for Android, and I’m pleased to report that it’s just as good as the original iOS version (which is already one of the best email apps for iOS around.) It’s fast and responsive, especially for searching the thousands of archived emails I’ve got kicking around my account, and offers all the customization features that Spark is known for: letting users tweak what menu icons they’ll see when viewing an email, notification options, and a quick access widget that offers shortcuts to things like starred emails or your sent folder.
My one complaint is specific to the Android version of Spark — due to Android app conventions, actions like delete or archive are located at the top of the display instead of the bottom. It’s a bit awkward to have to shift attention back to the top after scrolling through an email to take action on it, but Spark is following in the path of other Android email apps like Gmail here, so I can’t complain too much.
The app itself is still a lot to take in, with lots of options and settings to decide between, and more casual users may still prefer something like Google’s stock Gmail app (which will still be first in line for new features and updates from Google itself). But there’s a lot to like about Spark, especially if you’re the kind of user who likes to tweak things around to optimize their personal workflow.
A now-deleted Borderlands 3 Twitter post has caused a stir in the community with its revelation of a September 13th release date and the mention of preorder bonuses in the form of weapon skins. In addition, eagle-eyed Twitter user Wario64 also caught a now-deleted post with a brief video showing the Epic Games Store logo in the corner, possibly hinting at a timed exclusive. Gearbox's Randy Pitchford addressed irate fans on his Twitter saying that marketing decisions like this belong to 2K/Take2.
The Twitter posts from Wario64 with the leaked release date and possible Epic Games Store exclusive:
Borderlands 3 releasing on Epic Games Store (from a Twitter ad video that is now deleted) pic.twitter.com/d4v17GapWZ
Randy Pitchford's thoughts on the Epic Games Store exclusivity:
2K/Take Two has exclusive publishing rights for Borderlands 3 and makes all decisions regarding price-points, territories, distribution and platform partnerships. Please direct all inquiries regarding any of those topics to 2K. We are *just* the talent. 1/3
At this point, 2K Games isn't ready to confirm or deny the ostensible release date or any other information leaked yesterday. "We have nothing to announce at this time, but will have more to share about Borderlands 3 on April 3rd," the rep told Gamespot.
What are your thoughts?
Suzie Ford / Suzie is the Associate Editor and News Manager at MMORPG.com. Follow her on Twitter @MMORPGMom
iFixit today shared a teardown of the new iPad mini, confirming specs and providing some additional details about the component parts of Apple's smallest fifth-generation tablet, which is compatible with the first-gen Apple Pencil.
iFixit notes that the only exterior clue that distinguishes the new iPad mini from the earlier model is its model number, A2133, and the removal of regulatory markings on the back, which can now be found in software.
Inside, the new mini has an 8-megapixel rear camera and inherits the 7-megapixel ƒ/2.2 front-facing camera setup that first appeared in the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, offering a big step up from the 1.2-megapixel sensor in the iPad mini 4.
Other changes in evidence include a faster A12 Bionic processor, 3GB of RAM (up from 2GB), True Tone sensors, a migrated set of microphones now centered near the front-facing camera, and a different battery type in the iPad mini 5, although its 19.32 Wh rating matches that offered by the previous iPad mini.
Like the iPad Air (iFixit teardown due tomorrow), the iPad mini features two speakers for stereo sound, dual microphones, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi 802.11ac, Gigabit class LTE on cellular models, and eSIM technology.
While many components are modular and can be replaced independently, iFixit notes that gobs of adhesive hold many parts and cables in place, including the Home button, complicating all repairs. Replacing the battery is also said to be possible, but still unnecessarily difficult. As a result, iPad mini earns an iFixit repairability score of 2/10.
The hole-punch shaped front cam on the Galaxy S10 family might have been an eyesore for some, but that only lasted all of two minutes. Soon, creative users were making wallpapers to fit perfectly with the cutout, then they established a subreddit for them, and Samsung got in on the fun in an official manner. But if wallpapers aren't your thing, or if you want something to hide that camera in other apps, there's now another approach. Energy Ring, a new app, puts the battery indicator right around the camera hole, almost making you forget about it.
With Energy Ring, you can customize everything about the battery circle: color, thickness, direction, and even choose different colors for each 25% increment. A setting lets you disable the indicator on fullscreen apps so you don't have it there when watching videos or playing games.
The app is currently optimized for the Galaxy S10 and S10e, but support for the S10+ and its larger dual front-facing cam module is in the works.
The developer is quick to point out that even though the app requires notification access, it only uses it to actually do its thing, and that the app's own battery use is minimal. If that answers your doubts, you can grab Energy Ring for free from the Play Store. Some IAPs let you unlock the more special customizations of the app.
Galaxy S10+ support added
The app has received a few updates over the past week to add support for the Galaxy S10+'s dual front-facing cameras. It still seems to be in "beta" (not an official beta, just the dev's way to say it's not perfect yet), but after a few iterations, some fixes to alignment and landscape orientation, it seems that things are working well enough now for you to give it a try.
