Guys, Mailbox is on the App Store. Oh, wait. It’s not really on the App Store. Instead, you can now download a count-down application that lets you know there’s about 200,000 people ahead of you waiting in line for the privilege of downloading the app. Think it’s all sour grapes on my part? Think again, I’m not the only on who thinks this is garbage.
Here are some early thoughts from our Twitter timeline:
Fuck this shit: twitter.com/MikeIsaac/stat…
— Mike Isaac (@MikeIsaac) February 7, 2013
Mailbox might have the record for quickest deletion from my phone.
— Nate Boateng (@NateBoat) February 7, 2013
If ‘reinventing’ something means your users need a ‘reservation’ to use your app I’m not sure you’re reinventing it right.
— Sebastiaan de With (@sdw) February 7, 2013
@mailbox I’ve lost my reservation code, what can i do?
— Emmanuel Reyes (@_emmanuelreyes) February 7, 2013
enthralled by the ‘people behind you’ counter in @mailbox. number keeps climbing
— Anshuman Iddamsetty (@slowdecade) February 7, 2013
The new Mailbox app looks cool. Too bad there are 260,000 people ahead of me to get in. Why doesn’t Gmail just add similar functionality?
— David Chen (@DavidrChen) February 7, 2013
Like everything else in San Francisco… I guess I’m in a long ass line for @mailbox. twitter.com/instanttaylor/…
— instanttaylor (@instanttaylor) February 7, 2013
Blerg. #mailboxapp twitter.com/mlward54/statu…
— Mark Ward (@mlward54) February 7, 2013
That’s just in the last three minutes. By the looks of it, a lot of people are pretty annoyed that the application is taking this approach to a launch. Mailbox will probably say it’s a creative way to scale a service; we call it an artificial way to increase demand for the application.
Thing is, people aren’t going to wait around to see the app finally released. There are half a dozen of new email applications getting set to be released.
What do you think? Is this over the top, or a clever way to roll out an application?
