by Jason Snell
A future for extending Apple Mail?
David Sparks finds a glimmer of hope for the future of Apple Mail in Apple’s new MailKit plug-in interface for the Mac:
There is already a rich ecosystem of Apple Mail plugins, but I’ve become increasingly leery about using and recommending them during recent years. My concern was that Apple could, at any point, pull the plug on Apple Mail plugins.
A few years ago, I talked to an Apple engineer at WWDC who explained that mail plugins, historically at least, represented a security vulnerability, and Apple is very much interested in removing any security holes. The good news is that the announcement of MailKit means Apple is not pulling the plug on plugins but instead found a safe way for them to continue while keeping the platform secure.
Sometimes it’s the little things. I desperately want Apple to do more with Mail, but adding a modern plug-in interface (that, dare I say it, might one day even show up on iOS?) gives me some hope that if Apple isn’t interested in extending Mail, maybe plug-in developers can do the job in a way that’s secure, stable, and built for the future.