Spark Review

There have been many attempts lately to drag mobile email kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Although innovative solutions such as Mailbox, Inbox by Gmail, and Mail Pilot have been praised by users looking for a completely new approach, none of them has yet displaced Apple’s built-in Mail on our dock.

The latest contender to the throne is Spark, a free iPhone app with striking similarities to Microsoft Outlook for iOS — the only third-party email app thus far to really make us sit up and take notice. Featuring a comparable unified inbox approach, Spark emphasizes smarter email, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

One unique feature we like automatically sorts incoming missives into personal, notification, or newsletter categories, stacking them atop a Smart Inbox view until read, at which point they fall back in line with the rest of the inbox. Important messages can also be pinned (Spark’s version of flagging) at top to keep them front and center.

The natural-language-based smart search works well for combing through thousands of messages, but Spark’s “smart” notification system isn’t quite as intelligent — at least not initially. It wound up creating anxiety over missed emails instead, which could only be relieved by tapping the alert icon in Details view to force smart notifications from specific senders. Other options include notifications for every email, or none at all.

There are other features Spark absolutely nails: it’s one of the most customizable email clients, allowing users to tweak which “message cards” show up in its sidebar and handy pop-up widget — for example, results from saved smart searches, specific IMAP folders, or a basic calendar view. Additional cards for tracking iTunes/Amazon purchases, flights or packages are coming soon.

Spark is pretty solid for a 1 release, scoring bonus points for its ability to save emails as a PDF file, send or save attachments to a variety of cloud services like iCloud, Dropbox, or Evernote, and use quick responses (Like, Thanks, Smile) to confirm receipt — a handy trick that also works on Apple Watch, along with full voice dictation for longer replies. But there are bugs to be squashed, such as long pauses when opening new emails, and Spark’s penchant for displaying the splash screen way more often than it should.

The bottom line. Spark hasn’t kicked Apple Mail off our dock quite yet, but it’s already neck and neck with Microsoft Outlook as one the best third-party email apps around.