Google acquires Sparrow e-mail app for Mac, iPhone

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Sparrow, which develops an eponymous e-mail client app for OS X and iOS, announced on their Web site Friday that they’ve been acquired by Google and are becoming part of the Gmail team.

The statement from Sparrow CEO Dom Leca said, “Now we’re joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.”

He said that the Sparrow development team will be “working on new things at Google,” but Sparrow will remain available and the team will continue to provide support for users.

Terms of the acquisition were not revealed.



  • swotam

    Love the “we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps” part. Nothing better than screwing over the people who made you a success, your customers.

    Guess that subscription-based push notification service won’t be coming any time soon eh?

    Back to Mail.app I guess.

  • Jon

    Very disappointed. I guess we’ll be looking for alternatives as soon as the app stops getting updates and support. Hope Tapbots creates a new app for us, they seem to be the only ones who could make a great looking alternative to Mail.app.

  • http://twitter.com/jeffbax Jeff Baxendale

    Sparrow said one of the main problems with push-notifications were that they didn’t want to take on the risk of checking and securing everyone’s email. I think acquisition by Google gives this MORE chance of finally coming through.

  • http://buzzingpixel.com/ TJ Draper

    This is why we can’t have nice things…

  • Jon

    Sparrow will not be getting new updates, so push will never come. The team is busy with Google products now which probably means working on a new Gmail app for iOS and Android using what they learned from building Sparrow. Sad day because no Sparrow app for iPad as well.

  • No

    Google just killed off the only competition to bypass its ads that they show via Gmail.

    This is blatant killing of competition.

    Somebody yell Antitrust.

    • Sam

      “competition to bypass its ads” ?

      Sparrow is a half-assed IMAP client, no IMAP client has Google ads in them, including the GMail app from Google itself.

  • Chuck

    Never understood why anyone used Sparrow in the first place. It doesn’t even have to basic functions that mail.app has like push etc. and without jailbreaking your iOS device you can’t set it as the default, which like Chrome is a total dealbreaker.

  • http://twitter.com/hrpanjwani Hardik Panjwani

    i wont be surprised if we soon see a push by legislators in the EU to get iOS to allow changing default applications

  • David

    Classy move putting Sparrow for Mac on sale (for the first time ever) last weekend, then essentially discontinuing it a few days later.

  • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

    Very excited about this. Sparrow will only get better with direct integration support!

    • http://twitter.com/jrarseneau Jean-Ray Arseneau

      Dare you to hold your breath until the next version comes out….

      • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

        I wasn’t prior to the acquisition so no different. I’m just thrilled for the Sparrow team and hopeful Google does right by it.

  • Jay

    I stopped using Sparrow a while ago. Now I can delete it. What a load of bullocks. It showed some nice promise but never quit lived up to its potential. In other words, a fine product addition for Google.