Google finally removes the iPhone and Mac version of the Sparrow e-mail app

Sparrow has flown the coup. As first noted by TechCrunch, Google has removed the iPhone and Mac versions of the once-popular email app from their respective stores.

Google purchased Sparrow’s developer all the way back in 2012. A number of Sparrow team members helped contribute to the new Inbox by Gmail app, which arrived back in late 2014.

I’m surprised it took this long for Google to remove both of the apps. When announcing the acquisition, Sparrow CEO Dom Leca said “While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.”

But instead, both apps were left virtually untouched. The Mac app was never updated after the acquisition and the iPhone version only received a few minor tweaks. The last update landed back in October 2013 to add support for the iPhone 5.

I was a big fan of both Sparrow email clients for the iPhone and Mac. At least for me on the iPhone side, it was the first app to really supercharge my email workflow. And the Mac edition was light years ahead of Apple’s own bloated Mail app.

Thankfully, since Sparrow’s acquisition, a number of other powerful emails apps have arrived for both the Mac and iOS. Currently, I’m enjoying using Mail Pilot. It just received a big update for iOS with the move to version 2.0.

And if you’d rather use a free app, I can also highly recommend the newly released Microsoft Outlook for the iPhone and iPad. The new title is based on Accompli, which Microsoft scooped up in late 2014.

For other news today, see: A new report says Apple Pay is coming to future editions of the MacBook, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, Dropbox update brings a powerful and handy iOS 8 share extension, and Microsoft Office for iOS adds iCloud and Box integrations.