Boomerang Is Finally Coming to IOS [Updated]
Boomerang, an email add-on that lets you control when to send email, is now a free, fully functional email app for iOS. We have for many years include Android version in our download package for Android , and the application was launched in 2010 as Gmail add-in, so it was a long time ago. The iOS version is in beta testing, according to the FAQ hidden in the app’s settings menu.
Boomerang for iOS is best for sorting. As a mobile application, its main purpose is to let you forget about your email until you return to your computer.
The app differs nicely from the flat, monochrome design trend seen in most modern email apps, instead featuring a navy blue ombre interface and colorful buttons.
But this is not the only discrepancy. It also excludes avatars and streams, and hides quoted text by default, so sometimes you’ll have a hard time remembering the context of an email. I found it distracting enough to prevent me from completely switching from my Google mailbox . See Update below.
Inbox actually has its own snooze feature, but Boomerang is far more robust, offering customizable presets for how long you want to snooze an email and how to flag it when it returns to your inbox. If your main problem with email is timing (whether you check it too often, write work emails after hours, or don’t know which messages to respond to first), Boomerang has the answer. It even uses natural language processing to identify emails that seem to need a response.
Boomerang also added a voice assistant that should recognize sentences like “What’s Jason’s phone number?” But I can’t recommend it. He couldn’t recognize most of my searches, often sending me to his calendar for no reason. I didn’t trust him enough to try voice commands like “zip all email from Amazon.” But so what? Anyway, how often will you search your email for voice search? Most of these features are completely covered by text search, which includes a handy list of keywords.
Ironically, some of the other features are voice-only. See Update below. One is Tell Me, which displays a schedule and summary of unread emails, and estimates how long it will take you to sort them out. As you can see, I am too busy with my mail to be of much use, but if you are inundated with email in the morning, it can bring up the most important items.
Until he learns from your habits, you will need to test Boomerang. Of the 20 emails in my inbox, several of which are insurance-related, Boomerang recognized only one as “unanswered.” But I haven’t touched those insurance emails in days, and I haven’t trained the app, actually responding to anything it marks as important. The boomerang simply reflects my wrong choices.
Email, to-do list, contacts, and calendar integrate with each other over time. The Boomerang Voice Assistant, when it is running, can create, delete, and change the schedule of events on the calendar, as well as inform the attendees that you are running late. Unfortunately, all this can only be done with a voice. If and when that changes, the app will be twice as useful.
Boomerang for iOS is free, at least while it’s in beta. (The Android version is also free, while the Gmail and Outlook plugins require a paid subscription over and above a certain usage level.) It handles accounts from Gmail, G Suite, Office 365, Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, and Microsoft Exchange.
Boomerang | iTunes
Update 10/20/2017 1:20 PM ET: Two fixes: “Tell me” can also be obtained by pressing the app icon with force. Multithreading is fully supported; Not sure how I missed this in my initial tests.
In terms of voice recognition, a Boomerang spokesperson offered to troubleshoot issues via email, stating that this feature “is not intended for quick commands / questions, so it is probably best to give it 15-30 seconds between requests.”