Sparrow Acquired By Google; Gmail For iOS To Get More Beautiful?

Casual e-mail users may not recognize the name "Sparrow," but avid users have probably heard it a time or two. Why? Well, the startup is largely credited with creating the most beautiful and intuitive e-mail app for the iOS platform, and now, the whole team is Property of Google. That's right -- a company that's making e-mail beautiful on iOS just got acquired by arch-rival Google. Boom.

Details on the deal are pretty sparse, with reports suggesting that the entire team was taken for around $25 million. Sparrow users will likely be bummed to hear that the members won't be working on updated versions of Sparrow; instead, they'll be striving to make Gmail more beautiful.


If you're unaware, Gmail for iOS is a pretty lackluster app. It's more like a web-wrapper of the HTML5 web app than anything. We certainly won't complain with a pinch of Sparrow to Gmail's iOS app, but you have to wonder if Apple itself isn't kicking the dirt for letting these guys get swooped up by Google first...