Newton Mail is continuing to operate beyond its original closure date after the service was bought by new owners (via The Verge).
Newton was originally set to shut down on April 30, following previous owner Essential's decision to cease all operations earlier this year. Essential originally came in possession of the mail app through its acquisition of the CloudMagic team in 2019.
The new owners are software designers Maitrik Kataria and Justin Mitchell, who concede in a Medium post that they're not a "well-funded VC backed company" but are simply big fans of Newton Mail.
Like many of you, we were gutted to learn that Newton was shutting down, yet again. This time though, we had to do something. We scrambled to get in touch with Essential as fast as possible. After a rollercoaster of a bidding process, we were lucky enough to be chosen as the new owners of CloudMagic.
This wasn't easy for us. We aren't a well funded VC backed company. Nor are we a big corporation looking to acquire assets we can use. We are just an indie app development agency that loves building products.
Both Justin and I have years of experience in designing and building beautiful software products for startups and companies. We understand the ins and outs of product design and development but M&A (mergers and acquisitions) was a new rodeo for us.
Lucky for us, the circumstances around the buyout and recent economic situation, accelerated the sale and let us take over ownership of what we think is one of the best apps developed.
Existing users of Newton Mail shouldn't see any differences in the short term and the service will continue to cost $50 a year to use, but the new owners plan to bring better communication and customer support to users, as well as fix some bugs in the software. After that, they intend to roll out new features including a new dark mode within three to six months.
Users can also expect a revamped privacy policy that will help give them better control over their data and bring the service in line with GDPR compliance. In addition, existing users are being offered three free months of service, a 20-percent discount for lapsed subscribers who want to give Newton Mail another go, and a referral program for new customers.
The new owners are promising that if their attempts at running Newton Mail fail, they'll open-source the app and "find a way for self-hosted servers to support the product indefinitely."
