Moving from palmtops to desktops, Dropbox starts the public beta period for the Mac version of Mailbox.
Though public, the beta period of Mailbox of Mac is closed. Those wishing to participate in testing of the software will have to sign up for the beta, if they haven't done so already.
Acceptance into the beta comes with a "betacoin," which serves as an individual license to the Mac version of Mailbox. Betacoin also activates mobile snooze, a feature that enables users to "snooze" messages received on mobile devices and receive them later on the desktop version of Mailbox.
The release of Mailbox to Mac brings with it draft support, a feature Dropbox said is essential now that the mail program has made it to the big screen.
"Along with the roll out of Mailbox for Mac beta, we're also launching draft support for Mailbox on desktop and iOS (coming soon on Android)," states Dropbox in a blog post about the Mailbox update. "Drafts are saved locally to the device you're on and automatically synced across devices when you're signed in with your Dropbox."
The Dropbox spinoff, which has been well received by users of Android and iOS devices, follows a trend that's seen companies like LinkedIn and Facebook find success in developing standalone apps that are aimed at doing one thing well, says Tony DeVincenzi, Mailbox product designer.
"Dropbox has come from the magic folder to home for life," says DeVincenzi. "We have this responsibility now of being the container for your most important stuff. It makes a lot of sense that we would build very specific and very considerate experiences on top of your most important stuff."
It's necessary for Dropbox to evolve and expand in order to stay true to its objective and serve the every-changing needs of web users, adds DeVincenzi.
"The core promise of Dropbox -- being a home for people's [and] companies' most precious information -- that promise has to evolve into this world where information lives in more formats than just files and folders," he says.
As part of Dropbox' evolution, the file storage company introduced Streaming Sync back in July of 2014. The Dropbox feature enable users to play media as the content was downloading.
Streaming Sync, which supports files of at least 16Mb in size, accompanied by Dropbox support for four more languages. The additional languages include Danish, Dutch, Swedish and Thai.
