Not a chance

It is because I keep coming across stories like [[http://www.yepthatsme.com/2005/07/24/apple-mail-in-tiger-can-kiss-it/|this]], that I don’t think I will ever be able to embrace Apple. I just don’t understand — here you have a [[http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/ | nice email app]] (or so I’ve heard) and email is one of the few things that has been standardized to death on the Internet due to the simple fact that people like to read their email //anywhere, everywhere, all the time//.

So why, oh why does Apple has to go around inventing proprietary formats for storing local mail? Why can’t they use the excellent [[http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html|Maildir]] format, when almost every other email client in the world does it? The excuse that this format is //optimised// for [[http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/|Spotlight]] is bullshit. They brag so much about their API for enabling Spotlight support in applications, then why couldn’t they just write a backend for Maildir files (the way [[http://beaglewiki.org/Main_Page|Beagle]] does!)

Also, apparently this change is new to Tiger, and so old Mac OSX users are affected too. Even if they decided to change the format, is it too much to ask that the software confirms with the user before doing the upgrade, or atleast //informs// the user that something drastic is happening to his/her files? So much for desiging good user interfaces. Sheesh! Why don’t these people ever learn?