Unauthoritative Pronouncements

I wrote about my building frustrations with Mail for Six Colors. I knew my draft was way too long before I turned it in, and apologized to Jason Snell. Instead of having a bee in my bonnet about Mail, I had a whole bee hive. The post on Six Colors is a much more focused, and more relatable, blog post that went right into the problems with Categories. That’s why Jason’s a great editor, folks. I’ll include the less interesting parts here as a “bonus” for people that like to read about my frustrations.

Make Fetch Happen

Since iOS 18.0 I have been experiencing an issue where I will receive a Mail notification for a new email, but when I open the Mail app it hasn’t fetched the message. It’ll take 30 or so seconds for it to connect to the mail servers and fetch them. I have no idea why I have a notification, with part of the message text, for mail that I don’t have in hand.

This didn’t appear to be widespread, so I thought it might just be server hiccups. Then my boyfriend started complaining about the same issue with his Gmail in Mail, which isn’t the same service I was having a problem with, and our accounts are not shared.

While he was still on 18.1 last week he had a day where he wondered why he hadn’t gotten any emails, or notifications. He opened Mail and it downloaded 28 unread messages.

Both of us have our email accounts set to fetch every 15 minutes. I have no explanation for why it wouldn’t have downloaded messages from hours ago, nor an explanation for why it would have notifications that it would summarize but no mail downloaded for it.

I kept thinking that the updates that would roll out this fall would just iron it out, but they haven’t. In fact, my friend Ry complained that Mail in 18.2 was failing to fetch his Mail until he opened the app too, and that was working for him prior to 18.2.

Apple Unintelligence in Mail 18.1

Before complaining about my new woes in iOS 18.2, it’s worth remembering that because of the rush to release the promised Apple Intelligence features iOS 18.1 dropped with email preview summaries, notification summaries, and an Apple Intelligence Priority feature that would highlight important messages you should read first.

The notification summarization was typically pointless for me, but harmless. I left it on out of curiosity, and it never did anything too weird. Huge win.

However, the Priority feature spectacularly malfunctioned on its first run and picked The Most Obvious Spam Email That Ever Existed to highlight as a Priority.

It’s a bummer that this spam got through the spam filters to make it to my inbox, but the decision to put it in the limelight wasn’t helpful. Bestowing Priority status to spam is an egregious error because in less-completely-obvious circumstances it makes it appear as if Apple is vouching for the credibility of the email.

We can argue about semantics, because Mail isn’t saying the message is Verified, Certified, Official, or anything of the sort. Apple is merely saying it’s Priority, which implies importance only in the order you deal with your mail. However, I would definitely argue that declaring it Priority is an endorsement of the message and the sender, because the opposite of Priority is the stuff in my Junk folder, which the system does not notify me about in the slightest, and it is where this message should be. Elevating it in any way is wrong, and potentially harmful over leaving it as a peer with other unread mail.

MindNode founder and developer Markus Müller-Simhofer reported that he’s getting Priority fraudulent email in the macOS 15.2 version of Mail, which didn’t get the same alterations as iOS 18.2 so who can tell if this feature is even in sync across Apple’s platforms? As Craig Hockenberry notes, “Apple is adding legitimacy where there is none.”

I haven’t received another Priority scam email in iOS 18.1, or 18.2. Mostly it highlighted routine emails that were of no importance, but harmless. Its performance as both unimpressive, and unreliable means I’ll always hesitate over anything this system declares as a Priority.

If only there had been some kind of beta program that this thing could go through until it was ready for release. Not simply until an arbitrary, calendar-based goal for “good enough” was hit. More on that in a second…