from Hacker News

Superhuman is Sublime Text for Email

by mastermojo on 1/3/21, 7:14 AM with 59 comments

• by lemonspat on 1/3/21, 2:36 PM

  Sublime Text doesn't have a $30/month fee like this does though. ST is popular not because it's sleek, but because it's fast, uses little memory, never crashes, and restores everything when your computer goes brrrrp

• by Brajeshwar on 1/3/21, 2:39 PM

  I paid for Sublime Text during its early days, I believe about 10 years ago. I paid for an upgrade again. Sublime Text, iA.Writer, Hemingway App, and Grammarly is my primary writing tool.

  I was invited to SuperHuman during its beta, and I tried it. I didn't upgrade. First reason was of course, the cost. The Second was, it isn't for me. In 2008, the first things I did with Mail on the iPhone was to remove that "Sent from my iPhone". So, the "Sent with SuperHuman" kinda labels do not work with my ways. "This is not the Way."

  I have been using emails for just over 20+ years, and I have learned a lot of tricks to manage my emails. Right now, I've reduced to just about 7 mailboxes. I have tried many email clients but I have settled on macOS Mail for quite a while.

  My MailBox on Dec 31, 2020 - https://public.oinam.com/photos-oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos...

  Last year - https://public.oinam.com/photos-oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos...

• by incrudible on 1/3/21, 2:51 PM

  Here's a purely speculative analysis of what's really going on with "Superhuman":

  Most of those users paying $30/month are trying to figure out how an application with such a mundane use-case could possibly charge that much.

  This is a more elaborate version of the "I'll tell you the secret to getting rich if you buy my product" marketing scheme. The secret, it turns out, is to sell people the secret to getting rich.

  The fact that this product is invite-only neatly obfuscates that this approach doesn't scale beyond a small niche of users. There's no conversion rate that would show that this product actually performs above-average.

• by emptyparadise on 1/3/21, 8:56 AM

  I think any "Sublime Text of X" should also support offline only use. In my book this rules out apps that only function in the browser, require syncing with some service to function, or are only offered as a subscription service.

• by leephillips on 1/3/21, 2:23 PM

  “sleek design, responsive speed, and suite of keyboard shortcuts to improve a user’s email efficiency”

  I have no intention of trying this, but I have very little doubt that Mutt is superior in these regards to something that runs in a browser.

  “Part of its feature offering includes read statuses, which is useful for executives and sales people who like to keep a pulse on their conversations.”

  Seriously?

  The article closes with:

  “I look forward to a [...] future where everything can be done fast and efficiently through keyboard shortcuts.”

  Sounds like the future that I’ve been living in for 20 years, using free software.

• by vasco on 1/3/21, 9:12 AM

  This calendar screenshot has a 45 minute block scheduled to "Think" on Saturday morning. One wonders how he gets through the rest of the week.

• by prawel on 1/3/21, 9:23 AM

  IMHO no Electron app deserves a „Sublime Text of X”

• by francislavoie on 1/3/21, 9:03 AM

  Sorry, what? $30/m for an email client? That's absurd.

  I'll stick with Thunderbird, thanks.

• by paozac on 1/3/21, 9:21 AM

  On a Mac the "Sublime Text of email" is probably MailMate, which is well worth its $50 price.

  I thought Hey's $99/year was expensive, but $30/month is ridiculous.

• by gbourne on 1/4/21, 1:42 AM

  I tried Superhuman for over 2 months (and paid). The first experience, beyond the wait-list, was a little strange. You were required to meet with a Superhuman rep to guide you through the app. This was strange because I've bought more expensive software and was never "guided", but perhaps I should have been, so I was open to the process.

  The woman I met was very friendly and consumer focused. After the walk through I felt this might be a great product until I stopped and considered what I just had been taught: keyboard shortcuts. Almost the exact same one you can turn on in Gmail.

  For the next two months I tried liking Superhuman - partially the hyper, partially I want better email. Superhuman is pretty, has a few nice macros, email open tracking, and of course shortcuts. At the end I dropped it because of the price. $30/mo. for what it does just didn't make sense. If it were $5, easy sell. $10, perhaps.

  I know they are trying to make email better, and perhaps they did - a bit. I believe over time email will continue to be made incrementally better, but Superhuman's underlying claim is they have tectonically shifted email, thus the price.

  Unfortunately, they haven't.

• by c-c-c-c-c on 1/3/21, 9:04 AM

  This is just an ad for their application. First sentence is, "Superhuman is an invite-only $30/month email client."

  Should give you a sense if its worth your click.

• by nameoda on 1/3/21, 9:09 AM

  Clickbait headline to advertise for an email client, with some content at the end to justify the headline.

  Also:

  "invite-only $30/month email client"

  "Take a quick peak"

  No thanks.

• by alpaca128 on 1/3/21, 9:14 AM

  Isn't that the email service that tracks where and when the receiver opens the message? Not sure how that's related to a decent text editor, let alone one that doesn't only come with an invite-only subscription.

• by sys_64738 on 1/3/21, 4:53 PM

  > Superhuman is an invite-only $30/month email client

  Right then. That's more expensive than my cell phone plan.

• by nbzso on 1/3/21, 11:05 AM

  Remember Quicksilver? Concept so strong that even Apple implemented UX in Spotlight. Sublime text/VSCode etc. If this thing was some universal app working on top of popular mail clients with one time license it will be like Sublime. $30 for one year is $360. For a web only app.:)) It's borderline ridiculous. And is actually fake Luxury. Luxury is always associated with long term value and in this context privacy and offline mode are valuable points. This is just expensive toy for SaaS hipster crowd.

• by sn41 on 1/3/21, 4:34 PM

  I am really happy with Seamonkey email client. One of these days, I felt sheepish, and went to Thunderbird. Didn't cut it for me. The killer feature in Seamonkey for me is the search. The default works, but so does MacOS mail - but the advanced search in Seamonkey really works. I wonder why so many mail clients make a mess of this.

  Especially during this Covid era, when the mail volume seems to have multiplied by a factor of 3 for me, search is really important. I don't want fuzzy search, but rather exact search. Strangely enough, the mail client that seems to get it right is also the one that is clunkiest to look at.

• by Chazprime on 1/3/21, 9:16 AM

  This is a truly bizarre ad campaign for an expensive email client that’s...invite-only?

  No thanks.

• by jez on 1/3/21, 9:25 AM

  This article appears to have been wrongly flagged. It does not, to me, look like an ad but instead a piece about a set of features across a number of productivity apps that the user admires.

• by m1gu3l on 1/3/21, 3:48 PM

  well i didn't make it past the first sentence. good luck with this.

• by kevsim on 1/4/21, 1:53 PM

  The article mentions Linear as the "sublime text of issue trackers". Just in case anyone is interested in this space, Kitemaker (YC W21) is considerably more keyboard friendly. Much like Superhuman, you can do literally everything without the mouse.

• by gnicholas on 1/3/21, 9:08 AM

  I find it confusing that the author alternates between saying "Sublime Text of X" and "Sublime Text for X". Is there supposed to be a difference?

• by ExtraServings on 1/3/21, 9:17 AM

  by sublime of x, you mean 'no longer as cutting edge as it used to be'? Used it for years, but had problems locating my license when transferring computers. Moved to vscode and haven't looked back.

  Same with the original paid version of BSD. Lost an ethernet card on a Friday night, had to deal with license BS or just go install FreeBSD.