Thunderbird for iPhone and iPad

[pjolt]

Tl;dr: I would love to see Thunderbird (Currently known as K-9 Mail) also being brought to Apple devices. 

The term privacy and open source have become well used and something of a reason for many to switch apps/services and even operating systems and devices. But in this day and age on Apple those options are lacking since many are stuck with Apple and having access to a well functioning and well designed e-mail app, with transparent/limited/no data collection from a trusted source is severely lacking since as a user you are basically stuck with the default Mail app, or Canary which seems to be what many recommends (i think because there simply is no better options currently) but in having used K-9 for several years on Android and now that i am currently on Apple i find myself lacking options.

But also with Canary moving to offering a more algorithmic and automated approach (it´s called Copilot and is pro/paid option) in handling of e-mail i think this will create a need for options. Personally even the look of the bottom toolbar is a annoyance since 1 icon is dedicated to the Copilot and no option to remove it. At least i cant find one. 

So i hope this idea generates some discussion and for others to chime in on this.

If this suggestion is already somewhere else, or if this should be posted elsewhere then please point me to that place so i can add my vote.

[Jon]

(Note: similar ideas have been merged into this thread)

[Jon]

Also, for anyone interested, there is a similar thread for an Android version of Thunderbird that can be found here: Android version of Thunderbird 

[bn-7bc]

Is there any ETA/progress report on this, I'm among the people who can't wait to get thunderbird on IPad, keep up the good work

[jevangelho]

@DeviDarkLIt's awesome that you'd be willing to pay for it, but Thunderbird will remain free on mobile platforms as well!

[jevangelho]

@bn-7bcIt's difficult to give a progress report or ETA yet, aside from re-confirming that we're committed to an iOS version of Thunderbird. We need to get a solid and polished Thunderbird for Android published first. In the meantime, we're currently hiring for a mobile manager, after which we'll start recruiting iOS developers.

As things stand, I wouldn't expect to see any code until next year. But hopefully that flies by. We totally understand the demand for an iOS version!

[dunbarrc7]

As an iOS user, I'm disappointed that Android is getting priority for smart-phone version of Thunderbird. What drove that decision? 100s if not 1,000s of apps are published for both operating systems. I have zero experience coding for either OS; but I would think that there must be underlying similarities that would enable development for both to proceed concurrently.

[silverjam]

@dunbarrc7 This previous post should clarify the situation.  I don't have modern experience with Android or iOS, but they are vastly differently platforms (one big difference in just the language ecosystem as Android is Java/Kotlin based, the other being Objective-C/Swift).  Traditionally it's been very hard to develop a cross platform app that also has a good user experience and "feels" native on both.  Modern solutions exist for this problem, but I don't know if they are feasible for the Thunderbird team.

[dunbarrc7]

Thanks, Silverjam

I accept your explanation, but nonetheless express my disappointment that the Android phones will get Thunderbird before the Apples. I guess I'm a bit selfish that way.

[shadowman]

Will both Android and iOS version support PGP encryption?

[bn-7bc]

@silverjam or you could use c#/.net + maui and re use allmost all the code, but for some reason this aproach seams to be one pushed by very few people

[silverjam]

@bn-7bc Yeah, not to get too far off topic, but there's lots of options for cross platform frameworks now, I don't know if one that's tied to Microsoft is the right choice for Thunderbird though. I assume that the Thunderbird team is aware of these options, and perhaps (this is my guess) the "native code base" option is the one that's the most likely to remain healthy in the long term.  If you pick a cross platform framework, you're binding yourself to the community around that framework for the long haul, and in my opinion those communities/frameworks have a less certain future that the mobile platform itself.

[Nibor1st]

I'm here for one reason, I searched the internet for Thunderbird iOS 🙂 Can't wait for it to happen.

[bn-7bc]

@silverjam well .net being tied to microsoft is a bit of a gray area, it open sourced (the .net class libraries and the cli tools), you are right tha Microsoft is still the main developer and the one managing the project, but I sypect that .net has become thsta impotant to a lot of people that if MS where to loose interrest (they wont as the .net toolchain (at least wisual stufio) is a tool to drives asure sales. Ok maybe that is not so relevant for the mobile side of thinks. But ok It's ofc up to the devs what they chose, .net was just a suggestion to cut down on code duplication betveen platforms