Then, we can find some kind of standard protocol between the client and the server so you can use your client with any email provider. We could call it... IMAP!
Remind me again why an e-mail client has to be a native app? Is there anything special that makes an e-mail client different from a, say, IRC client, which could be, for example, a browser extension such as Chatzilla?
This is beside the point, as bbx was saying that he preferred Gmail's UI over something new; the new thing living in a browser wouldn't really affect that :)
I'm not arguing with @bbx, I'm replying to your assumption that when @eloisant wrote "email client" he meant "native app email client" ;)
I was trying to express my belief that neither @bbx nor @eloisant were wrong: a browser extension implementing a generic e-mail client that talks to servers using IMAP might be a really good solution. I would certainly like to try using something like that.
Why not? If an IMAP client issues a "SEARCH TEXT foobar" command, why shouldn't Gmail answer as fast and as well as it does online? Nothing in IMAP precludes good efficient search.
seriously. it does a better job than an old nx mbox, or other technology. i'm not trying to say it's not better, it's just amazing how impatient we've gotten in the last decade, and how much we've bought into "googlethink"
Then, we can find some kind of standard protocol between the client and the server so you can use your client with any email provider. We could call it... IMAP!